Morning

Few knew this, but deep down somewhere was a pious man, a solitary dweller with a
distant yet genuine regard for humankind, a regard wrapped tight in his leathered, suncracked
skin, bound by his wrenched sinew, clenched like a buzzing fly in the tight fist of his twisted but
steady heart. Deeper yet he harbored a dark, unfeatured shadow.
A murder of hobbled clergymen stood dullminded and unmotivated up past their knobby
knees in the grass outside. Elbows to the table, holding his coffee to his mouth in both hands, he
sipped then spread his lips in a smile that shocked the lazy crows into flight, the slow winged
birds struggled, a sneeze of black earth spattered against the already sullied clouds. He laughed
at this uneasy revelation of power, then spied the real cause of their sudden flight, the rout of

WALKER
coyotes loping low tailed and ears flat past the crap and corruption between him and the barn.
Creeping bones beneath those tattered rags they glided past glen and gulley not desiring to be
seen for they were guilty of too much. Smile gone, he stood up, braced himself to bang through
the porch door and scatter the critters with a yell, then seeing his young mare watching keenly
from the fence in the yard beyond the coyotes path, he thought otherwise. If she dont know this
fear, he breathed, dont teach her none of it.
From a tangle of artificial vines and flowers contained within an indoor planter he had
crafted from sandy stucco to mimic a symmetrical earthen structure, a ceramic squirrel laughed
at him, monkeys chattered, deer stared with their black eyes, a lion sat poised sleepy and
indifferent.
Walker woke each morning, every morning, before there was light, before light was even
a suggestion of light, an ember still beneath the heavy slag of night. He brewed cheap bitter
coffee in a stove top percolator. Made eggs and toast. Covered the orange eyes with ketchup
and then split the yokes with the prongs of his fork.
Everything belongs somewheres, has got a place. That was an unerring truthhood alright.
A box, a space, a fit, a place. Unborn, wartorn, wanton.
Behind him lining three wooden shelves was a variety of glassware collected on roadtrips
traveled long ago including shot glasses painted with caricatures of drunk-faced sombreroed
Mexicans exposing their genitals as if to commence with morning micturition.
Plate scrubbed down with toast and cleaned to a lick, he lit a cigarette while he snatched
the morning figures of the farm report from the radio - sixteen, nineteen seventy two, eighty one
percent - the words having not form or substance by which he could gather and decipher a
meaning, and with eyes squinting against the bite of loitering sulfur he peered out through the
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double paned windows, searching over the top of the scabrous iron railings of the outside porch,
through the empty branches of the dying apple orchard laced in crooked alignments like cobwebs
soft and forgiving, then the space where smoke and breath and shadows of screams cries and
laughter danced about and all that had so contained him like a mason jar for fifty years, on past
the barn and the rising cornfields like the ocean he had never seen, there he watched the sun
burst through the littered horizon like the burning end of his cigarette on which he dragged long
and hard.
A rooster silhouette cut from black iron hung above the kitchen bay windows, and the sun
burst out like Missys bosoms from her unhooked bra...
( however like most things they appeared far less than perfect beneath the fluorescent
light inside her massage parlor, wrinkles became manifest, stretchmarks like webbing come
undone. Still fine though and a mole between them, like another button to undo, a dropped
raisin, a bullet hole)
and the sun burst out like the squeal of a dinner pig and the sun burst out like a
dagger from a gunblue wasp and the sun burst out like a kick in the pants and the sun burst
out like the panties of a drunk woman set careless on a bar stool and the sun burst out like a
fillys sneeze and the sun burst out like oil from a spout and the sun burst out like a
remembrance of something thought forgotten and the sun burst out like a frogs plop in a
willow pond and the sun burst out like a misspoken word and the sun burst out like the
tongue from a thirsty dog and the sun burst out like a new swearword from God Almighty
and the sun burst out
Lazy curls from his cigarette touching the pomade thickened ends of his unwashed hair,
he waited not for the heat of the day that would swatter even the hardiest man but for the hour to
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turn seven so as to drive into town and climb the ladder and mount that roof on the church where
he had been working all week long to replace a crucifix that had fallen years ago with a new one
that he had created from steel, as tall as a man, heavy as four or five, burnished bright. A storm
was coming.
He sucked on his cigarette and inhaled to the lower sacs of his lungs. On the radio the
numbers came to an end when he heard the word catastrophe, the word reaching his ears in a
tumbling of soft bricks. Catastrophe, apostrophe, apostolate. Catastrophe: the syllables
punctuated the air soundlessly riding the smoke from between his lips. The place between the
end on one side and the beginning on the other. It was the bookmark in the Bible he never read.
The defining moments that one cant but remember. It was Trishas child falling headfirst down
the septic pipe. It was hitting the neighbors collie with the station wagon. It was Arnold
stumbling beneath the scythes of his tractor. Catastrophe was the peal that marked time. It was
the tornado last spring. It was the car crash that killed six boys and three girls after a high school
basketball game. It was Gertrude breaking her leg when she stepped in some horse shit. It was
Wanda finding out her husband sucked dick. It was Old Pal being ripped to shreds by coyotes.
Catastrophe was what steadied the strong, what shriveled the weak. It was the Schmidtes losing
their farm and then Carl Schmidte shooting himself with a shotgun only to remove his chin not
his head so he had to be fed with a tube, smoke from a hole stabbed in his throat. It was a boy
born to the wife of a man whose face would never appear in his son. It was something that could
happen today, something that could happen tomorrow. Something that happened, just happened.
God had nothing to do with it. Why would he care about us any more than we care about pigs
and chickens. The world was symmetrical in some way. There was evil at play here somewhere,
a kind of underlying physics of sorts, the opposite of progress perhaps, but where.
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On the counter Aunt Jemima sat fat and black, digesting her digestives, while salt and
pepper shakers shaped like dancing mushrooms were forever ready to twirl arm in arm.
He bent, curled, cut and anchored iron to the ground. He worked from his pickup which
transported a generator he had built from a diesel engine that he bolted to the flatbed, he stared
into the electric arc through blackened visor, watched the puddle fill the flange, single and
double lap, v-butt and fillet welds, his retinas scarred and calloused as his hands.

His

contribution was to take something solid and permanent from inside the earth and make
something solid and permanent above the earth and to do so in a way that marked an act of
human significance. That was how he saw it. Wood could be significant but it was temporary, it
was the dead elements of something that had once been alive, it had a wavering issuance that
could never impart permanence. Iron was the black, solid permanent inner blood of the earth
carved, twisted and pulled into significance to grace the surface the earth. When the world
burned one day, and stopped burning, his iron would be the testament that would remain, rigid
outlines of what had been, the forms, the real skeleton of what had been once upon a time, the
remnants of thought, of intelligence. He imagined that some post-apocalyptic being might sift
through that ash and kick up the railings, the grates, the iron doorways, the weather vanes, the
picture frames, the handrails, the balconies of iron. They would all be there whole amongst a
ruin that was but dust and sand. There would be the only remaining crosses of the world, hot
beneath dust and ash.
On the table was a neat stack of cards. Top card an ace. Women up late playing card
games. Walker never cared for the idle occupations of mind. Never watched a Sunday football
game. Never gambled. Drank more to be with himself than to be shouldered with foulbreathed
and birdminded others. He added pastel hues to enlarged photographs of his son, wife and the
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family dog. He fashioned bird houses based on his own studies of the birds he wanted to live in
them. He trained horses, believing that fear had to flash in that large chestnut eye in order to
gain control, obedience. He painted a mural on the stucco walls of the basement, life sized black
bears in a scene of fir trees, waterfalls, moss covered rocks, none of which he had never
witnessed except in the two dimensional, in a Life picture that he copied credibly to tree, claw
and cloud. In secret and usually inebriated he played tangos on the squeezebox.
If he embodied anything general and identifiable it was the Midwestern mentality, the
mind of the heart of the heart of the country, although and so like this mentality, he never
pondered any such notion. He spoke little, didnt partake in discussions of politics, God was no
better than fate at deciding the whys and whatfors of things, and despite his powerful, wiry
frame, he never allowed his anger to disintegrate into pugilism. His knuckles were dry and
scarred, his fingers immune to fire.
She really didnt know he knew. He plucked a hair from his nostril. A person has to have
his or her secrets he reasoned. Secrets keep our selves identified to ourselves. Otherwise we are
nothing but what we are to others. And once that happens you are ready for dust. Life was
nothing if not a form of containment. But he heard her all right last night again, not every night,
but enough nights like the last, he heard her talking in the downstairs, her voice coming up
through the floor where she was alone, thinking that no one could hear her. He heard her though,
he didnt quite know what she was saying, the content of her talk a garbled blathering, but still he
knew.
On to the porch, three legged Jeepers lurched, sat on his twisted haunch to preen his
natted tabby fur. The sun glittered in the spoons from all fifty states that hung next to the colored
glass fish forever swimming upstream on the kitchen wall.
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Dark clouds over half the morning sky, more rain on the way. Just like that the river
would rise and flood the water tables all the way out here to West Avenue Road over twelve
miles from the banks and fill the basement with that underground seep that flows through rocks
and caverns of porous sediment darkly, oozes its way like a dank breath through the
impenetrable, the mountains and ranges turned upside down with time, a lesson if we could see
it, that we live not on a sliver of land, that we subsist not on a dusting of earth but that we carve
and cut, scrape and rake and still never really touch the deeper earth.
In symmetry was meaning, and in symmetry there had to be something akin to the
mathematical, he reckoned. And in numbers one could probably find a bunch of answers to a
bunch of things, but who says the human mind is truly capable of such things? Numbers and
letters, so similar in some ways, so darn different too. Too much to grasp rightly, still numbers
were hard to ignore.
She collected things, all things, everything, pencils, rubber bands, shoes, photographs,
plastic bags, Christmas cards, tinsel, and kept it all in the attic, a vast reliquary organized in
religious, scientific order on the shelves he had built for her. Summer dresses, gowns, knee
length skirts, blouses white and unadorned, macram sweaters, rayon summer clothes, heavy knit
winterwear, shoes, pumps, heels, sandals, belts, neckerchiefs, sashays, scarves, jackets, gloves,
socks, pantyhose in large plastic egg cases, knickers, knee high socks, ankle socklets, medical
mercury socks, fishnet stockings, winter underwear, cuff links, neck ties, bow ties, hair pins, hair
scarves, hats, blankets, linens, towels, mechanical pencils, pens, erasures, clips, tacks, balls of
string, balls of rubber bands, balls of yarn, balls of wires, post cards from small towns such as
Intercourse Pennsylvania and Pigsville Arkansas, birthday cards, baseball cards, celebrity plates,
mugs, ceramic figurines, snapshots of people on beaches, in front of mountains, next to a
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fighterplane, many new cars, photo album after photo album, stamps, spoons of the nation, of the
world, tea cups, snow globes, wax candles in the shapes of animals. Halloween decorations,
Christmas ornaments of every value from pure crystal to fastfood prizes, plastic leprechauns,
stuffed animals, train sets, croquet sets, ping pong balls, baseballs, paperback books, readers
digest editions, national geographic, life, farmers almanacs, pads of paper from insurance
agents, real estate calendars, costume jewelry, hair pins, makeup, compact mirrors, bars of soap
from Best Western and Quality Inn hotels, TV guides, plastic wine glasses, sun glasses, oil
paintings from who knows where, packages of seeds for cucumbers and marigolds, plastic
flowers, silk flowers, miniature houses, miniature furniture, empty photo frames, an artificial
arm, dog collars, bees made out of pipe cleaners, hats made out of beercans, crotched baby
socks, sweaters and headcaps, anti- itch ointments, sunblock, lipstick, shoe wax, alka selzer,
records shedding their cardboard covers, needle point kits, hand irons, barbecue utensils, wall
hangers, coat hangers, door stops, pennies squashed on the railroad tracks, used tally sheets from
yahtzee with initials of forgotten players, old glass bottles with strange pastel colors, a box of
tampons, mens socks, old children toys made out of sheet metal, lincoln logs, an erector set,
scissors, shoelaces, corn on the cob holders, a punch bowl set, crystal dolphins, sewing needles,
bowls of buttons, jars of beans, an Ouija board, clip on bow ties, Doans pills, corn pads,
ornament hangers, boxes of wax paper, nails, screws, nuts, bolts, sandpaper, a sledge hammer, a
long black wig, food coloring, a sea monkey farm, paper clips, hotel shampoos by the dozens.
He had carefully, lovingly framed with routed bevels and perfect joint, sheltered with deep
shelves, unerring drawers and plain but reasoned cabinets, her every passion, made a place for
even her smallest obsessions.

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WALKER
Mans vulnerability has to be his strength somehow, he reasoned, for how could man
survive with skin this thin, with nothing but the soft mush of a body on frail bones, were but a
turtle torn from its shell, all but our brains exposed for anything to grab apiece, to tear off a
chunk or bite. And infants are like slugs in that they have no protection at all, cant move or
nothing, soft as a slugbody and should die every one of them though rarely do. How can this be?
Look at the rest of life, it comes encased and protected in its armor, it was whelped on the
condition that it would be immediately put into battle, there would be a fight from the bloody
beginning to the end. Yet here comes man as helpless and armorless as a peach and yet he is the
one who casts his dominance over the land and the sea and even the air where he does not belong
a bit. How can it be?
Even when Eva Schmidte asked him to, he could not make a cross from wood.
Philosophy and religion were woven in some fashion with no less hidden complexity than
shape was given of mud and breaths of air that licked that mud, in the separateness between
mans own life, his own way of seeing and the road he blindly had to follow; it was less to be
mulled over, as man had plenty of other things to mull over to bother with things which force no
change upon the world, there was a simplicity to the life that was not manifest in living. There
was less than thought and more than poetry in the winds that blew down trees, the skies that
sucked whole houses into funnels of darkness, rivers that filled lives with the mud of Pompeii;
there was no more to this thing called love than there were cures for the common cold; and what
of time, it ticked, it tocked but never added up to what a day should be or a year for that matter.
Life was caught in the instant, made up of the words one could best manage at the moment, and
when it was good, it was repetition, it was worth saying again, it was worth doing again and it
was worth remembering again, and again; one could not regret a lost chance anymore than you
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could regret the loss of a finger, a missing tooth; heaven is too wet to care for your tears; the
earth is already tilled with shit and bones; the best that we make with our hands is flawed; the
child we love cant escape the discovery of his own terrible future; death aint no different for
fowl, animal or man, only we fear it less if we are wise enough to fear it less.
Behind him in the living room, generations of children smiled in their photographs,
several with a soft blush added to their cheeks, a pale blue to their eyes, a dust cloud of color
rising from the background. On each side of the fireplace, black faced lawn jockeys held out
lanterns in front of their wide smiles.
Walker saw under that sky how life all of it was tamped down into the soft loam, layers
upon another, years, generations, flies, dogs, men, horses, all tamped down with the beds of
fallen stalks, dried leaves, all a dank and hearty mulch.
Slender of rawhide, tendon and sinew, he was a figure cut darkly, a shadow of a man, a
streak of oil, a man who stood upright, impenetrable on a horizon one morning, a splinter in the
earths eye, before the widow more afraid than concerned gave him a place in the barn.
You dont enter loneliness willingly, you are forced there, someone puts you there. If we
were truly by our lonesomes, wed probably be the happiest people on this earth, he pondered,
because when you are alone you are on your own accord, free. When you are pushed into
loneliness, well then someone else holds the key. Men and women get married in order to be
alone, it is the only way to be alone, cuz only when you are married do you feel the tight coffin
of loneliness, it suffocates you, pins you down, you cant move, and after a period of fighting it,
you accept, peacefully acquiesce.
On that night of ironblack skies shattered now and again by jagged shrieks of light, it was
raining painfully. He stood beneath a tree outside her back door. She called him to come in. He
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didnt answer, stood there in the rain. She called again. He would not move. She slammed the
door with a shout of resignation. Lightning snapped the ground nearby, so close the thunder
broke within his eardrums and almost immediately he could smell the burn. He was in love and
could not move.
Man here seeks out his solitary being, creates as much divides as hill and field, sky and
river will allow. There being a million jittering things in every square foot of land, from the ants
to the flies and the nits and the grasshoppers, let alone the jittering of the earth itself, of the
things like rocks and soil that move against and in rhythm with themselves, there being all this
movement one does not need to add the clumsy movement of men. Put men together in a crowd
and all you get is ugliness, destruction and pure regret. Nothing pretty comes of mens boots and
spit and the stuff they drag with them. Man can only take something that nature gives, take it
and rip it up, tear it apart and then try to make something out of it. Sometimes he succeeds.
Many times he dont. And so he leaves behind his flimsy attempts and the mess of his
destruction. He leaves behind the marks and scars of his futile attempts with what he feels is his
god given imagination, his divine intelligence. Really he is as stupid as any critter out here,
stupider in fact, for what critter cant survive. Man, he cant survive. Not for long, winter or
summer.
She was the homecoming queen that year. In satin red dress and long white gloves, she
sat on the top of the back seat of Henrys Dodge convertible, the refulgent beauty of her star
white face dissipating in the black steam of her windblown hair. He lived in a barn owned by a
widow who paid him to care for her apple trees. He did his business in the cornfields or in a
bucket if it was cold. Why she chose him, no one would ever cease to muse.

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WALKER
Skies so low dark and heavy that it is as if the ground had been lifted from the earth and
suspended overhead, ready to fall back. Fields were groomed and furrowed, stalks and leaves
heavy with green, the rows opened up as you drive past, revealing the earths dark gritty scalp.
From above, the land had been carved up into shapes that communicated with an astral sentience.
Sentience, sentence, sensate.
Farms that sat alone amidst endless fields like collapsing turds. Churches with steeples
like jokers hats. The phallic thrust of the silos, the mushroom clouds of water towers. Earth
was a small insignificant expanse compared to the world of sky above. Skies that harbored
distant openings far away and far overhead. Skies that arched overhead like the ceiling of a
cave, distant light peering through the crevices, faint openings out of reach. The world of sky and
clouds dwarfed man and his imaginations to build any kingdom here on soil and dust. What
could man make that could stand the smallest sneeze from the sky above?
They married before a magistrate and moved to the house he had built on the dead
widows land in anticipation of a new life which he regarded as inevitable as the next numbered
day on the calendar. One night she asked him to follow her outside where a new moon quickly
covered them in darkness as heavy as cloth. He followed her silently to where the berry
brambles cluttered the fence and there she stopped. He waited silently as he listened to her
movements, as if she were building a nest from twigs. Then he felt one of her hands take him by
the chin and with his mouth open in surprise the berries were pushed past his teeth, her hand
clenched his jaw and he chewed the bitter fruit. Before he had a chance to swallow or spit out
the juice and leaves, he felt her mouth come up to his and they were sharing mouthfuls of
masticated berries, vines, juice, young wine. Then, a few months later, the mornings, the nights,
spring days, winter storms, evening skies, stars, summer breezes, the taste of whiskey, the smell
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of smoke, the weight of day, all changed, forever. And not for the better. A boy had been
conceived.
He felt the chip in the Formica table with his finger, as familiar as the broken tooth from
his youth was to his tongue.
Truth was revealed not discovered, found in the way two pieces of wood fit together, in
how a window let in just enough light, in how iron curved so that it fit the unsteady hand, in how,
with his hands, man could make nature a little less irritable, a little less unwieldy. What mattered
these thoughts? He would like to but could not ignore them, no matter how many times they
came around. Thoughts came to him but never stayed unless they came back to him again, came
back like the fly in its elliptical orbits between where he sat and the windows picking up the first
morning light, came back like an obsession and when obsessed so then he could put his mind to
it for good and try to make some sense of it, if I came back, not once but many times, like all
things that matter, like morning, like winter.
A jet crossed the sky leaving its widening mark. The armament plant up the road a ways,
the nuclear silos, retracted like so many gelding pricks beneath the grassy knolls, hidden among
the corn fields, visible only to these fighter jets practicing useless formations, buried monuments
to the past, to be dug up, still pristine and sleek, pointing to a time when the earth produced not
corn or grain but sleek missiles, as beautiful as any of mans creations. Now holes where things
were buried, more than just some steel and wire contraptions, more than just some fancy gizmos
and computers, what were them holes but mouths into which they fed our hopes, our aspirations,
what were them holes but chutes into which they shoveled our memories and what few clear
pictures of the past we managed to keep, like so much garbage down them pits went not just the
metallic and machinery of life but life itself, the flesh and blood of sons and daughters, the still
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WALKER
living flesh of the old, the born and the barely born, all shoved down them holes and so when
they were filled capped over and left to hide in the fields as if they never once were, fences like
forgotten sutures that once held these fields to each other. Somewhere down there, her brother
was buried, a man who played tangos on his catgut string guitar, the only man ever to tell Walker
that he now had a brother of his own.
He sat in the kitchen, in the breakfast nook she called it, at a table that fit lengthwise into
the space defined by windows on three sides, to the east and to the south the windows faced the
outside, to the north, the windows looked into a sitting room where no one ever sat which served
more as a foyer to go in and out to the back porch. The porch was three slabs of concrete which
stepped down to a long slab of concrete where there were three wrought iron chairs, a wrought
iron bench and some wrought iron tables, all of which were too uncomfortable even when
softened with a pillow or pad and so no one ever sat here. You stepped off the lowest pad and
onto the short grass that surrounded the entire house like a moat, here in the back the moat ended
with rows of strawberry plants, beans, cucumber vines and tomatoes growing inside cones of
chickenwire. This was her realm, her garden, the product of her stooping and kneeling to pick
and weed, this was where she worked with her three pronged fork and handheld spade, this is
where hed see her kneeling amidst her vegetables, her hands in cloth gloves, wiping her hair
from her forehead and some sweat with the back of her wrists, her face pinched in the
seriousness that heat can cause, her eyes squinting in the sun, the bees that loved her dank
womanly odor buzzing about her like tiny moons in orbit about their mother planet. This is
where he sometimes heard her sing, although her voice would be so low he could never make out
the words or song or even be sure it was her and not something that had drifted to his ears from
some other place. This too is where he heard her speak, sharing a conversation with no one but

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herself, in pitches both high and hurried and low and grumbling. Who won these arguments he
wondered. There she sat, balled low to the ground, squat like a tumble weed blown into the
garden and into his life, such was life, he thought, you made with what you had, with what
gathered, with what appeared beneath your feet, such was the world but this small space where
some few things gather and so gain significance, so become part of happiness perhaps, more
likely become misery, for what are these things but points of attachments where misery more
than happiness finds suckle, gains purchase.
She worked in the battery plant, sometimes every day of the week. The chemicals had an
undeniable effect, her skin was blistered with cankerous lesions, her teeth turned as grey as a
summer storm and in her eyes you could see a submission to misery that would never weaken.
They shouldnt let girls work in there she said if they could still gets pregnant. She spoke from a
mouth that was connected to innards grey and poisoned, dead in some ways already.
Sure, he wondered had he ruined her life, a beauty queen shed been long ago, a real
eyeful. She was a bit wild and had a problem pretty severe with her father, and so that is why
Walker always connoitered that her problems had deeper roots than anything he might have
planted in her. He was no good, that was for sure, rotten as a man can be to a women he
reckoned and we all seen some rotten men. Her beauty was gone, long gone, her smile was all
but disappeared, her grey teeth like loosely cobbled bits of quarrystone. She had long lost her
figure, bloated it out to three, four times its size then as if deflating a doll, she lost it all with the
loose skin and fatty folds now hanging grotesquely to her smallish bird-like bones. Had he done
this to her? She was a bitter and vindictive old woman now, who only rarely made him dinner,
the thought that they would share a bed was the only laughable thought they shared. It was cuz
of the boy, is what he thought. Could see that in a look that took surface in her eyes sometimes.
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WALKER
What fathers do fathers do. Sure they regret it, but then that is what they do. He had
never wanted a child, but he knew he had no say in such things. And so the boy came about, and
only Walker was less than happy for the event. It occupied her and so there was a blessing.
Created work for him, but that he could bear. He actually enjoyed building the bassinette from
pictures he tore out of a Sears catalogue, the small table and chair that he designed himself out of
the imagination of his own mind, the sets of drawers that would hold the boys eventual small
cars and other things, the rocking horse for his second Christmas. But what disturbed him was
the people this child brought into his near proximity. During the pregnancy the sisters and
friends would come over, but he could bear that. After the birth, they came over more frequently
and he not only had to bear that he had to play a role. He had to come in and help with
something, he had to go and get something, he had to show the others he was capable to pick up
and hold a baby, that he knew how to grasp it, how to lay it down, that he would not throw it,
toss it on the bed or into a pile of dirty clothes, or roll it down the stairs.
And then he whelped a second just right at the same time as the first. The mother afraid
to have a child who would look like her man.
Looking into the well was like looking up into the moon except opposites, a shaft of
darkness coming from a source of darkness on one hand and a shaft of light coming from a
source of light on another, yet there was a symmetry there, a symmetry he tried to study. He
never understood light until he had to make way for it, had to imagine its movement and
direction, had to account for it when it wasnt there. He never understood its various directions, it
timidity or its blinding power. He never truly understood how things came to live and die
according to light, how its powers of deadly heat and desiccation worked alongside its more
nurturing powers of warmth and combustion. Nor did he know before how sensitive light was,
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how much it changed with so little distance, how one could never eliminate light save tearing out
ones eyes and then light would most likely haunt even the blinded in ways horrifyingly
unimaginable. He knew little of this, perhaps none of this until he began to build his house. For
there was never enough light and so windows were never large enough, there were never enough
windows, and he never understood how dark a cellar can be or how dim a hallway until he made
them, or how corners can fade and become uninhabitable on account of their lack of luminosity
or how walls that seemed smooth and even could suddenly become lumpy as animal skin under
the right mix of light and shadow. He sought what he could in natures examples. He looked
through the trees, he watched the clouds move, he peered into ravines and held up tufts of grass
to the sun. He would never be satisfied.
Died like a weed dies, shrunken and brown, withered, no good no more at sucking in air
or water, and so it dies, unnoticed. His father did. What had his father done to him? Same as any
father he reckoned. A hardscrabble farmer he was. Such men are not purveyors of things soft
and delicate, no, they touch with spark and splinter, they smell of burnt engines and scared
beasts. They have fewer words than tricks with their hands to hurt you with. They only laugh
when they were drunk and they never want to be around you when they is drinking. Fathers
were the substance of material being and yet they were the spiritual darkness that came with
strength, that came with the ability to lose a fingertip without much care or shoot an old cow
between the eyes. Fathers were the loam that was mixed from shit and sand to feed the crops,
they were the muck that sucked away your shoes from bottoms of ponds. Yet they were the
smoky hiss that gave life to life that no longer wanted to live. They destroyed more than they
saved, but they could take something broken, thing or animal, and force it back to life again.
Hed seen it.

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WALKER
Someone had told him that they thought the world was like an atom of a leg of a chair
that was part of a world that was an atom on a leg of a chair. It was so damn foolish he could not
stop thinking about it.
The boy lived as it is not entirely clear that a baby is ever going to live, why should it,
cant do a thing for itself cept suck and shit. How had he lived to be more than a baby, with his
mother and father no less, perhaps they had had better days. But his boy thrived, a quiet kid, a
shy kid, maybe cuz he was the only kid. Other kids would come over when he got older, but
Walker could tell the mothers were uneasy and soon no kids came over, only his son would go
out, somewhere else, and that was a good solution.
She shot him once. He had the boy helping him with the new barn he was putting up, the
boy had crawled out over one of the rafters and Walker had begun to move the long board,
causing the boy to curl himself around the board like he was a sloth or something, and so Walker
tried a little harder to shake him off, well just to scare him, and somewhere in all this fun he felt a
warm splash against his buttocks and a sound that cuffed him around the ears which was her
screaming in her loudest most terrible voice god damn you Walker Walker get down or I will
shoot you down. People he could not see off across the horizon heard that scream and no, no
kids ever would come over after that.
She never talked to him again until the night she came to Missys. That was bad.
Women were not someone he could relate to, he surmised. Not the only one that way.
Not the worst, though there was some bad things going on out there. And he was one of them.
Was it the whiskey? he wondered. Probably, but if it werent that then what would it be? Itd be
something. Women liked him, that is until they knew him. He guessed it was his looks that got

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WALKER
them interested and then something other than his looks that made em turn, made em run.
Usually when he found himself laughing he noticed that they werent. There was a clue.
Did Walker remember his father? Was he supposed to? Was not the success of a parent
gilded by the offsprings desire to be as separate as possible from the flesh that gave it pain, gave
it the lessons it never wanted? Would the boy forget him one day? Outside, two sparrows
erupted into a furious fight, a flurry of dust as they struggled over what? A twig? A bobbypin?
The three legged cat pounced without effective measure. Would the boy forget? What would he
forget? Yes. All, he hoped.
Missy was a certified masseuse according to the framed certificate on the wall although
with her deprived musculature she was none good at that. Had some disease he assumed. Never
asked. Her hands were weak and uninterested in their subject. Give her a drink and a twenty
though and shed do something more interesting. Until he laughed and then shed say it were
time for him to go. But there was a clock on the table next to the cot, hed say, a clock that still
had two minutes on the grimy face of its timer. No matter she said, somethings wrong with that
damn ticker, the minutes they have long gone and so you had better too. He never hit her or
nothing. Never even swore. He walked about and looked at his face in the window, opened his
mouth to see if something was in his teeth. Then Missy opened the curtains and screamed. He
laughed and she screamed again.
When the boy refused to ride the wooden horse he had made him for Christmas, he put it
in the yuletide fire. Then the boy sure cried, he did.
A yellow light burned in the barn, visible in the dawn, flickered through the dead
branches of the dying apple trees.

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WALKER
Two things he had never faithfully accomplished in this life. Never killed an animal
except to spare its misery, and two, never seen the ocean. He seems to remember a youthful day
when, with pellet gun to his shoulder, eye down the barrel and looking at the metal crossbar, he
surprised himself and hit a squirrel in the neck, didnt kill it though, though as he watched it
choke and roll about, gasp for breath and flutter like a rag being shaken of its dust, it must have
died due to the wound he had created even if he never saw it happen. Too often he was called
upon to attend to the mess man or nature made, as if it were to his station these animals came, the
creatures who feared him most came to him without fear once they had been maimed and
mutilated by car bumper or tractor scythe, they came to him as if he were the person they were to
come see at this time, to have guts sewn back in place, a limb removed, or if necessary their
necks twisted like a weak piece of hanging fruit. But these were ideas of a peculiar kind, blurry
yet distinct with guilt, not altogether convincing of their validity, suggesting and believable in
their character of things, done fixed in the brains matter to guide some moral course.
He smiled and a field of corn turned brown as a coyotes hide
Why had he done it with her, it werent his fault, she was a licentious woman, she was a
terrible feminine force lacking in what you would call good looks but therein contained all that
men desire from smell to touch to pleasure. He werent the first, but he was the one who gave
her seed and she tucked it away and made sure it grew. If she werent the Sheriffs wife, he might
not have cared. She said she could not bear to see that Sheriffs face in another human being.
And if I want to see another face, she said, I want to see yours.
The river was as good as an ocean, he reckoned, where it was too wide to see the other
side.

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WALKER
Like house, garage, shed, porch swing, flower boxes, miniature windmill and birdhouses
hung from every tree the barn was wrought from Walkers mind and calloused hands. A two
story rough sewn cedar batten structure taller and wider in front than in back, less in size and
scale but faithful to a traditional gambrel design, the roof of top pitch and steep pitch supported
by Douglas Fir beams and trusses covered a storage loft for straw and hay, a broken winter
sleigh, planks of various wood and size, empty wine casks and a neat stack of wooden nail
boxes. Varnished cedar treads hung from one wall on glulam cantilevers. The lower floor housed
the stables, tack room, feed room and a work room which took up more than half of the ground
floor, the sanctuary of a man of careful planning, precise measurement, and a certain pride that
disguised itself just as the best joints cannot be seen and nail heads vanish beneath smooth
veneers. Walls of varnished pine, rafters in the eleven foot ceiling joined without nail or glue.
An exquisite work bench with its ball-peen battered, chisel nicked and sawtooth bitten surface
painted with a high gloss bittersweet orange, below a series of plain, but perfect drawers ten all
together asymmetrically balanced against a single cabinet door, all painted a burnished blue.
Above it were thirty six wooden cubicles in which tools were sorted and stored. Baby jars, many
of them, screwed into their metal lids which were nailed to the bottom of a shelf in perfectly
spaced configuration and containing in suspension all manner of nails, brads, screw, nuts and
pins. Broad, generous windows were framed with pine and doublepaned against the harsh
winters. The room was as perfect and spare as a sinners prayer.
he smiled and birds plummeted like so many broken umbrellas
Some things persist, but they persist among things that decay, while so much changes,
evidenced by the sheaths that are torn from the softer elements while the harder elements

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WALKER
withstand, monuments more or less permanent to guide our eyes, such as the same sunrise every
morning so different in hue and form.
This barn was a mans temple cut as surely from gypsy rags as from Dutch or German
frock, as pious as his dark skin and the deepening shadows beneath his eyes, as shrouded as the
dark hair that covered only his head, eyebrows and the edge of his upper lip, as open as his dark
eyes were impenetrable, its presence a heavy gloss over a dark soul that refused to glower,
refused to express an attitude. He tamped and lit another cigarette.
Life distinguished itself from nonlife in as it struggles to persist, nonlife has no claim on
stability and no care if it lasts a moment or forever. Life is only what can determine its existence
from one moment to the next, can make a move toward extinguishment or a move towards
prolonged longevity. Life gives up and dissolves into its surrounds, it ceases to persist, but joins
the rest of the elements and mingles and disappears into them. And he thought: and so does a
song live as it begins clear and then fades into noise? What about all those elements that come
within us, the elements not just of the soiled and rocky but the flittering elements of fire and air?
he smiled and the morning mist became choked with floating bits of glass
He withdrew a flat toothpick from a ceramic bear with a hole in its back. He probed the
interstices of his teeth, then dug under his nails, scraping clean lines out of longharbored grime.
A tarblack bruise beneath the nail of his thumb was moving up from his cuticle, revealing a slight
moon, may keep the nail after all.
In the barn were the smells of leather, old and oiled, of oats, of smoldering hay and
seething straw, smells shaken from the shivering hides of his three year old mare, the stank of his
twenty year old pony.

Here was the smell of saw dust, of oil, of lubricants, of paint and

turpentine, oxalic acid, strippers, peelers, acid washes, degreasers, here there were spray
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WALKER
medicines for deep cuts, severed limbs. Here odor was deeper, more earthy than the smell of
sex, and unsurprisingly he preferred the mold of hay and the steamy scent of grassy plops and
beerthick urine of his horses to the yeast and feces and piss that stank of charred meat, armpits
that smelled of polished metal and cheap soap, no, here he preferred the dank of sweating,
foaming animals to the deathlike rot from human maws breathing into his recoiling face. In this
barn gathered all smells by nature secular, those of the earth and the wind, the feral and domestic,
all that was dank and fecund, slung from alimentary canals, puked from maws, shat from
gizzards, rich life-death aromas, hot and soiled, wet and subterranean. Here dust circulated in and
out of light, stirred by the mere wings of blue or bottle fly, a mans nasal breath, where storms
bred by a sneeze destroyed whole towns.
The headlights came swiftly up to Missys storefront, so swiftly they broke through the
glass and the light struck them like spears. He knew whose car it was but refused to believe it
until he saw his mares first place ribbon fluttering from the rear view mirror. He smiled as he
thought: I am as naked as a jaybird. And then she rushed in like a hurricane and with her voice
tore the night to shreds.
and the winds blew barn, home and silos clear off the horizon leaving a terrestrial sea
as black and as empty as memory
But he had heard her on certain occasions, when her voice could not be quieted, when her
shame and indignation got the best of her, when she could no longer contain what contained her
rage, when she could no longer dispel what dispelled her reason, and then he heard and then he
learned of her bitter sorrow, her choking fear, her stammering indignation, he learned then of her
repressed hatred for all that dare touch her, of her snakelike reaction to anything that threatened
her, he learned of the terrible unseen loneliness that pushed her being deep down into the nether
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WALKER
reaches of her body, he learned of things that no one should hear from woman or man alike, he
learned of atrocities that could not be believed, he learned of terrors that could never ever be, he
learned of pain that no sentient being could ever survive, he learned of human forces that painted
human nature with dour ruination. And then he learned of forces outside the body, outside the
mind that bend and warp us nonetheless, that from a distance pull at our blood, drain our fluids,
he learned of the beings that came from brightly lit saucers who appeared in the glow of an airheld ocean, who spoke without mouths and paralyzed you with a sound from eyes like oval
plates. He learned of the lights that fell upon her like needles and the weightlessness that her
body gathered about her, and how they whispered and said nothing, how they promised and said
nothing, how they offered her salvation but said nothing. Until they were done with her, until
they had used her like a guinea pig, like an animal for one of their experiments. How they had
ruined her and left her without even the most common dignity that allows anyone to live.
But it was not for any of these such reasons that he no longer could touch her.
He never satisfied his study of light because at his center was the pull of a darkness that
he would never understand. It was not just a dark spot but a dark liquid center from which he
emanated and into which he entered, it surrounded him and yet it left him free to go, it sucked at
him like gravity, yet released him like a retching throat, tired and powerful, angry and
complacent in its desire, it seethed at times and forced itself up past his eyeballs and formed a
corolla of despair around every image, it swelled and oozed and forced him to the ground as if
hed become a mere slug of a man, it embraced and exhausted him until he could no longer sleep
even after he would battle it with long draughts of whiskey and revel manically in the fire it
caused, in the terrible fear it put into what he most feared. He coughed and he harangued, he
took to his workroom and crawled on all fours, he kicked and he bucked and fought with all that
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WALKER
would allow him, he snarled and whimpered and became the source of fear that he never wished
for his mare. He growled and he moaned and he filled his sanctuary with a dark, poisonous cloud
that ate up his drawings, that ripped down his paintings and shattered his birdhouses into
splinters smaller than the bones of birds. He railed while his arms and hands illustrated in
terrifying fashion concepts and theories that were otherwise unbeknownst to him, he screeched
from a tongue enflamed which set clouds on fire and turned birds to ash. He groveled and
danced amidst his own excrement, covering his beloved windows in the designs freed from
terrified and maniacal fingers. He discovered words of unknown origin but clear with meaning
hung within in his mind like so many artifacts of a lost tribe and from these he found patterns
and from that concocted a language from which he wrote convoluted texts upon all available
surfaces, scattered poems that cut like metal shards. He woke up amidst this vile and hellish
destruction, aware and in some ways accustom to the periodic mystery, the fear scampering in
tremblings through his arms and through his legs like water leaking away, relieved he was to
know that this plunge into darkness was over, its grip was gone, he was a man again, two legs, a
pelvis on which his body sat, and felt his neck on which his head, grazed and beaten was hard
and human all the same.
Walker stood up and put his plate and cup in the sink. He looked out the window. Here
was the whole world in both its simplicity and unrevealing complexity, here were the elements
that made up life to be found anywhere, here were the rules written large and obvious to be
followed by mankind for centuries, here were the tiny testaments to the living created and then
scattered like litter across the ground, here was the dance of all creation of all damnation of all
critters and beings back when to time immemorial, here was the configuration of sky to earthen
bowl, here was the scale of colors and the sift of time, where was the division between all air and

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WALKER
fire and water and earth, here was the plain on which a diminutive being struggled to find a path,
a place, struggled to merely continue to creep and breath, to embrace another morning.
Diminutive, demonstrative, demon.
and the sky grey and wrinkled shivered like one giant living animal hide.
The boy crawled across the plank that crossed the trestles of the unfinished roof at a
diagonal. The sun was hot. He held one end of the board as his son slowly shuffled on hands
and knees to retrieve a wire that needed pulled through a hole in each trestle and so support the
lamps that would eventually hang across the ceiling. The plank shook with the boys progress
and Walker grasped it firmly in his hands while he stood on a ladder set against the side of the
barn. The boys crawling grew slower, then to a still. Walker shook the board to egg the boy
into motion again. Dad dont, the boy said as if for a second time, although it was the first. He
shook the board again and the boy again began to move. Then slowed. Cmon boy, he said. I
cant. You can, the father said. No, I cant. The father shook the board, this time with more
force. The boy lowered his body and gripped for life. Move boy, the father yelled in a half laugh
and shook the board again, harder this time. The boy yelled but the father was now laughing and
all was so filled with noise and commotion that all was silent, father with mouth open in a fearful
laugh, son with eyes and mouth open in a tearful scream, the world a noiseless sphere without
need for ear or tongue until a blast penetrated that vacuum and spilled a sudden warmth down
Walkers buttocks and legs. And suddenly the silence ruptured like membranes in his ears, and
then suddenly he heard it all, the cries of his child, the laughter of his own throat and belly still in
his ears, and now he heard her words Stop or I will shoot you again Walker you no good for
nothing son of a bitch! as well as the words he could not make out though the floors last night,

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WALKER
her anger shaken voice quivering as it screeched into the telephone, the words zapped across
telephone circuits and beamed all through the night, all across the galaxy on Radio Plain Truth.
and the sun burst out like a gunshot right to the ass
and this here Walker why he aint nothing but evil pure evil every godamned hair and bit
of him why he is the antichrist himself I tell you he for sure came from one of them ships came
here to ridiculize and torment me to take us all away to infect us all Im telling ya he is the beast
and the antichrist he is lucifer himself as sure as I am still on this here planet and if I got to get
myself on these here airwaves every night to tell yuns the truth about it all well I will cuz if I dont
then who will and so you all has got to know
Dinner plates painted with Disney figures laughed, ceramic dolls in all manners of dress
cheap and glamorous snickered, crystal elephants trumpeted, the spoon collections tinkled, the
snow globes flurried raucously, a wilderness of animal figurines twittered and cawed, the lawn
jockeys rattled their lanterns, the grandfather clock whirled and hummed, in a house rarely still
with silence, rarely at peace.
he smiled and the skies fell like sheaths of slag to the indifferent bosom of the horizon.
Hezbulah, chazmulah, jizboombah
and the sun burst out like headlights through a broken window and the sun burst out
like the roar of a jet and the sun burst out like a childs cry and the sun burst out like the arc
of acetylene and the sun burst out like a fart in winter and the sun burst out like aliens from
the littered sky and the sun burst out like a low solid grunt from a man who knew a days work
would get done only if he done got up and saw to it that it got done.

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WALKER

NIGHT

Did you hear this Glenn?

Here what?
What Alicia just told us about the Williams boy.
Now what?
Alicia tell him.
Well I was just saying how the Williams son got married to a girl from Des Moines and
how she said she would only marry him if he got a vasectomy on account of she already had
three kids from a previous man and didnt want no more and so he got a vasectomy like she
wanted him to and after two months she now tells him she wants a divorce. And the thing is he
dont have no kids of his own.
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WALKER
He sure aint going to now.
Its a shame cuz when you get older you just might change your mind.
He can change his mind all he wants. Thats the head that thinks. The head that counts in
this matter aint got a say in this at all.
Or a thought.
I think that was downright cruel of that woman to do something like that. Just think she
not only broke his heart she ruined his plumbing as well. Ruined it for good too.
I heard them vasectomies are reversible you know, like they can go in and turn it back on
again.
It aint a spigot Ellen.
Could have fooled me.
Ha!
Sure looks like a spigot to me!
Well, maybe he could take it up with Jack Lancer, remember he got a vasectomy. Nine
months later they had their tenth kid.
I think he lied to her.
Maybe it werent his.
No man wants ten kids.
After seven or eight whose counting.
I agree with Ellen, maybe it wasnt his.

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WALKER
Yea makes no difference after awhile, eight, nine, who cares about the tenth one or who
made it.
Well, I will tell you what the world is coming to, we got this little gal working the
morning shifts on line three and her name is Nancy.
I know her all right.
Well Nancy then you know that Nancy she can be a sweet thing or she can be downright
nasty. And when she is nasty I am a telling you, she is nasty. How in the hell she got herself a
man to marry her is beyond all of us. Its not like shes a good looker or nothing. But she did.
She lassoed this guy named Gerald from East B, he works at night as a toll guard on the bridge
and before she had her engagement ring on her finger she was out messing with some other boys.
Youre kidding?
No, I am not. I was working the morning shift for Helen the other day and so Nance
comes in and tells all us about this guy here and that guy there that she had been with the night
before like she was on some kind of mission or something. Like she was darn proud you now?
And wed tell her, Nancy, now you just got yourself engaged, so you cant be messing with no
other men. And she would just look at us and says, well youre wrong I can mess with whoever I
want, I aint married yet. Besides Gerald works at night and what am I supposed to do, wait at
home for him? Like yea right, she said. Well, I said to her, youre going to get married the way
youre going at it but it aint going to be to Gerald. Will never happen, she said, I am taking
these here birth control pills. I aint planning on getting pregnant to Gerald or no one else. I got
my own life to live and that dont include no taking care of some baby. Well I tells this story to
Gertrude and Davis at my house one day and when Im done Walker says, yea her and her birth
control pills, just watch, Walker said, shell get pregnant and when that baby is born it will be
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WALKER
holding all them birth control pills in its hand, just like this! Ohhhh! We had a laugh over that
one. Can you imagine, a baby being born after all that and coming out with them pills in its
hand. We laughed and laughed alright. Well, it seems that damn Walker was right. And it was
only a few months when we learned that Nancy was quitting the assembly line on account shed
become pregnant. Pregnant women cant be around all them chemicals like that you see. And
we all laughed again at Walkers joke that the baby would be born with them pills in its hand.
Well, comes the day the baby is born and guess what?
What?
That baby was born and it was born with no hands at all.
Jeez Lueez!
Thats downright scary.
Any more coffee?
Sure Ill get it.
Poor girl.
Poor child!
Seen Helena lately?
Not since this past Easter.
She painted her house.
No, thats her new siding.
Aluminum?
Yea, made of aluminum I think. Says itll last over a hundred years.
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WALKER
Who needs something that lasts a hundred years.
And you know it wont. All a rouse you know. I told her I think she got ripped off and
she just got all angry. People dont like to admit when they been scammed like that.
Well seems Grace is back to being mental again.
Shes agoraphobic.
What is that?
Means she is afraid of the outdoors. She wont come outside.
Well Ill be.

I can understand being afeared of being inside, I get myself a bit

colostrophobic at times, but being afeared of the outside, that is a new one on me. Who thought
that up some doctor I bet.
She is on some pills for it, I think, Alicia.
Sure some doctor thought it up so he could put her on pills. That is what these doctors do
you know.
Well, I think in some cases you might be true, Alicia. But in this case
These doctors are not the same anymore, they work for the new order they do, makes the
damn Nazis look like schoolchildren they do, how many people these doctors kill these days?
How many a day you think? As many in a day as the Nazis probably ever did? It sure I think.
Now Alicia. Them words is a bit strong.
Cancer is how they kill us, where did this cancer come from you think? Sure they says it
comes from the fertilizers, it comes from the smoke out of our chimleys, it comes from the lead
in them there batteries, sure it does. All I can tell you is that there werent no cancer when I was

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WALKER
a kid, not then. Nope, by golly, you ate and smoked and drank, you ate fat right off the bacon
and gravy and potatoes and all that kind of stuff and there werent no one dying of cancer then.
Now that we are supposedly eating all healthy and like, now that we got all our vegetables and
vitamins and all the like, well now all of a sudden we got cancer too?
I think we is doing it to ourselves, is what.
Them doctors give us new hearts now right? Our ticker craps out on ya and they're fixn
ya with a new one, dont they? Well first of all tell me this: why do we suddenly need new hearts
huh? Didnt need them before. Used to be you could smoke and drink and eat pig fat and your
ticker was just fine. May seize up now and then but all things do at some point, dont they? Now
suddenly they decides we need new hearts, cuz our hearts all gone bad. Give someone a new
heart and what in hell do you think happens? What happened to Skully huh? Or Tom, Rick
Farmers son? Right, they gets a new heart and the next thing you now theys dead. Something
else kills em, a tree branch or something Its all for experiments sake it is, that is what it is Im
atelling ya.
Well, Alicia, I think you are depending a bit much on speculation
And from wheres do ya think they get these new hearts anyway? Never used to have no
hearts to give. They get em from car accidents they do. Car goes out of control, smashes up real
bad like, kills everything but the heart. Come now, think about it, car accidents are perfect for
harvesting hearts, the heart is the only thing that can survive the crash protected as it is, safe long
after the brains spill out. Remember Lassie oh what was her name Milner. Lassie Milner.
She hit a skid and went right into an eight wheeler she did, Jerrod was there and he told us how
she had crushed her head like a baked apple, but her heart it kept on ticking and so they cut her

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WALKER
out of that scrap heap just so they could get that heart to the hospital, just so they could use it so.
It is all part of these experimentations I am telling you.
When Alicia she gets going look out, right Ellen?
Cmon Albert. Its technology that is killing us, we dont think so, but it is all around us,
written on every wall it is. It is all part of a plan, you see, cars, guns, all these contraptions you
see given to us and we think they all make life oh so much better when all it really does is kill
more of us so they can go on with their experimentations. Thats all.
Theres the whistle. Breaks over boys and girls.
Sure seems like these breaks gets shorter and shorter dont they?

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WALKER

Every day, in every corner of our 24-7 global economy, the demand for power is
constant, unrelenting. The technology of our lives, our work and our enterprise, of everything we
do depends on, absolutely demands that the power we require always be at hand. Its presence
essential. Its absence costly, disturbing, potentially catastrophic.
Something happens, a feeder screw jams, a screener clogs and backs up, a stray lead plate
falls into the tracks gumming the treads or Crackers simply falls asleep again and the red
emergency lights begin to swirl, the sirens blare, and like a cuckoo out of a grandfather clock,
Frank comes zipping down the passageways between the assembly lines, his crooked body
nearly falling from the motorized trike, his voice buried by the noise, his left arm helplessly lame
in trying to make his wrath understood. The assembly lines halt with a deep sucking sound that
retreats like water down a drain, the new silence revealing the company promotional message
played endlessly from speakers throughout the factory. She sits back on her stool and waits.
sure frank sure whatever you say frank gotcha uh huh okay wont happen again frank no problem
shouldnt make fun he cant help it but cant understand him not a word keep him here because of
the liability also so they can say they got a cripple on the floor that is why just cuz he is married
to stanleys elder daughter aint good enough am sure stanley would have liked to see that stroke
finish him off rather than leave his daughter with a gimp now dont be cruel dont say things like
this alicia you are just bringing on some bad things to yourself remember when mother had them
strokes kept knocking her down flattening her never expected her to get back up all rail and
bones no flesh left really by then the strokes would set her teeth achatter and shed spill urine and
I remember I would hope this would be the one to finish her on account of how much can one
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WALKER
person take in one life but she always got back up god dang it shed be back on her feet looking
not too much worse for wear until towards the end you could see the toll it was taking unsteady
she was on her feet her hand reaching out to keep her steady the smile gone and that look of fear
I think it was a fear of death I guess not sure how much she really thought about death never
talked about it really never asked her neither you never know sometimes unless you ask
remember her and father in the same hospital there once before he died they put a stench in his
neck and that did him no good he done died not long after that but for a while they were up on
the same floor hadnt talked to each other for probably more than thirty maybe forty years and
when I would walk her around to keep her blood flowing wed sometimes walk past his door and
I would say hey mother now who is that in there and she would look real intentive like and say I
dont know and then all of a sudden shed realize who it was she was staring in at and she turned
away and say oh my god and start shuffling on past and shed be mad at me for hours and I could
only do that once or twice and she caught on and wouldnt let me walk her if I was going to pull
a mean trick like that again father looked like a man about to die like a man who had used up his
last credits and now had to pay the maker once and for all his eyes sunken in like that and his
cheeks all thin his mouth wrinkled in on itself on account they took out his chompers so I cant
hardly recognize him except when he sees me and he smiles and then I can see something from
the past although I dont know why he smiles as he never done us any good never done mother
any good that is for sure and where is his wife he leaves mother all them years ago to be with
another woman and now that he is dying why his wife cant even make it to be beside him and the
ironing of it is his old wife is here with him instead though they cant stand the sight of each other
I have always loved your mother he said to me and so dont go saying I cant stand the sight of
her tell her to come in here tell her its okay after all this time after all these lives we have lived

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he said we can at least make peace now it is a time to forgive and forget not a time to hate and be
bothering about the past cant do nothing about that can we no cant do a darn thing about what
happened all we can do is forgive and forget but mother was not going to have any of it said that
all he wanted to do was drag her along with him into whatever dark goddamn afterlife he was
heading to and that he now had a wife to drag along with him into hell she was not going to be
petty to any such further humiliation and I told him she werent going to budge none and he
laughed and he said that were okay he said that marriage was like a bath it starts off hot but
before you knows it is cold as hell which made me laugh so they spent near two weeks together
on that same floor of the same hospital but never once that I know did they ever see each other
eye to eye but that once or have any kind of discussion between themselves only words that were
wasted in separate rooms where each was alone

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Sure Frank, all fine on line two, she yelled through the opening the raised visor created
in her headgear.
Knowing the crippled old man probably could not hear her, she gave him a big thumb up
with her silicon mittened hand, pumped it three times in the air to make sure. This seem to
satisfy the old man who pulled a key that hung from a retractable chain on his hip and with
difficulty inserted it into a control box, turned it, looked around one last time then punched a red
button with his barely cooperating fingers and the lights dimmed, the ground shuddered, and the
air shifted back and forth as the factory whirled back into motion again, conveyers lurched
forwards, sorting screws tore into their plastic and metal piles, sprayers smacked down the dust
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and the process resumed. For a few minutes she had to watch carefully as the chopped battery
bits rode the conveyors in from the hammermill, as during these halts the feed could pile up or
become inconsistent or stop entirely either way choking the channel causing another stoppage
and forcing them to start all over again. So far she had had none caused by her all week. All
clear now, she could relax.
asked mother what church she wants for her service and she said no church was even necessary
and I told her that it was necessary if she wanted to be buried in the churchs graveyard and so she
said that she didnt care and I said would you like to be buried in the methodist church or in the
lutheran church and she said wherever there are the fewest sinners and I said that our family was
mostly in the methodist church and so they had the most sinners though that was changing now
with her two sisters who had signed on with lutheran families and she said dont matter to me at
all as long as they dont stick me underneath a road sign and I said that would be the lutheran
church and so she said then put me in the methodist church cause I dont want no road sign over
me day and night like that and so we buried her in a perty little spot here was a tree nearby with
some shade and they seems to keep it up real nice callaway got her a tombstone with the word
mother on which is what we all called her and some roses carved into the rock itself as he said
that way if we forget or get too old ourselves to put flowers on her grave there would be some on
her grave in some fashion or another and I thought that was a thoughtful thing for him to do as he
knows as we all know that mother was the one who done everything for us as father was the one
who up and left us more times that once it seems leaving her to fend for us and herself and so
how she did it none of us really know but she did and so it is telling that she has a grave amongst
us all in some fashion and none of us does know where father is buried as he died in that hospital
and we werent even told of it until we noticed that day that his bed was empty and when we

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asked we were told that he had passed and that the wife had taken the body and we asked where
and the nurse said she did not know and callaway asked did she just put him in the car and drive
away and that nurse said I cant tell you and though I could tell callaway was joking with the
nurse I could see too that the nurse was not taking well to his joking and from then on wouldnt
corroborate none with us at all until callaway being a lawyer began to say some things in a legal
vein and so she then got a manager or someone and it seems that they were able to get us some
information but that information said that the body had been taken to some place in arizona and
well what were we going to do then that is a long trip to be driving with a dead body in your car
callaway said sure have to keep them windows open mother had an Indian doctor who I liked a
lot seemed he knew what he was doing but father he had had old doctor kragen and I bet that is
what done him in as much as anything these indian fellows seem perty smart alright

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She felt a drop of sweat form on her neck, which caused a tickle as it rolled down. Inside
the heavy white hazmat suit she looked no different than the other sixteen workers on the three
assembly lines, astronauts or aliens in appearance, their heads covered in large ventilated helmets
with darkened visors. The suits were airtight from neck to toes, air conditioned by long orange
tubes that would snap off in case of an emergency or if they got snagged on a wheel or belt. This
was her second shift of the day, which would take her to twelve noon, seventeen hours in all
including meals, but all time was the same inside these suits. With a rubber sheathed stickshift
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that she held in her right hand and a brake pedal at her feet she controlled the rotating teeth and
revolving feeder screws that grabbed the chopped plastic, plucked the lead bits and pieces and
composite plates from the recycled batteries, washed away the acid sluice that would be purified
in another barn, she worked the feed slower or faster depending on the consistency of the feed
and what she saw in the feed: a metal containment band, a particularly large unbroken plate, one
of them persistent nylon pulls or some strangely shaped piece of plastic could cause problems,
likewise if she did not move the feed fast enough the system on the other side would waste water
and chemicals. It was all about time and money. But she and the others were not solely about
money, there was not enough money in this, this was a job they did out of pride. No one wanted
a slow down on their shift. No one wanted a performance marker. The company used to dock
their pay for slowdowns and shut downs. The worst place for this kind of work was the
armament plant before they closed that down years ago. They worked you to death there, without
protection. Now she is supposed to get compensation for her work there, for being exposed to
chemicals and radiation they said, some forty years later. For being a solid contributing citizen
in time of national need they said. Cant dock the workers pay anymore though, even though the
unions are gone. Still they would find a way to make you pay if something was your fault.
Mens way that was.
see crackers here has hung a little cupie on his suit part of his plan to catch susannes eye over on
line three I guess crackers is crackers which is why we call him so I mean who would think that
by tying a little greenhaired naked cupie to the arm of your suit you would attract anyone to you
but this little doll keeps bopping around as if it were dancing naked on his arm probably
mimicking what is going on in crackers head which is that he would like be bopping around
naked in front of suzanne and well who knows maybe thats his plan and jeepers who knows

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maybe it might work who knows jeds girls are both moving to arkansas got jobs down there
saying that there is no work for kids with an education no more here in town and so they like all
the other kids are leaving here population is down again the census says the only jobs soon will
be at the nursing homes taking care of us old folk dumb enough to stay or who simply refusing to
leave or got no other place to go derek said that his wife is in the hospital on account of him
losing his job here and so she just had a nervous crackdown it seems cause now neither of them
will have work and who knows where any of us will find a job thank god I still have the cafeteria
job although I hear that is going to change as well and so then I am down to mothers money and
we all know that aint going to last long wanted to have that be the grandkids educations fund so
that they can get themselves a good schooling and get out of here just like jeds girls would miss
them if theyd go but you gotta do going to have to stop my subscription to the record club though
on account of the shortfall but mighty fine album the one of spain of miles davies love that
album love it more cuz walker hate it going to miss my new music but you gotta do what you
gotta do what you gotta do in life they said they are closing the plant on account of a merger with
some big company and that this was the way to make the company stronger well it seems to me
that if you want to make the company stronger you make more and make it better you dont close
now do you and now what used to be your best factory and throw your best workers out in the
cold but that is how men are they come in here build a factory hire a bunch of us and then the
next day move everything to india or china or mexico or somesplace not really giving a good
darn about any of us and look at all the women here you would think this was back when it was
all women cuz all the men were gone to war well now all the men are at the bar or doing
something heaven knows mostly women here should count them and verify that notion but sure
women are all thats left and of course they can get rid of us anytime they like

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proven products that use today's most advanced power storage technologies, world-class
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unmatched in the industry.
Monotony was life and the best sometimes of life at that. Seasons, planting, bugs,
cleaning, harvesting, working, sleeping, waking, eating, all was best suited to living as long as it
was consistent, reliable, predictably the same, the best was the best when it was routine. If this is
a story about women, then it is a story that must deal with monotony as with monotony comes
persistence and from persistence is strength and from strength there is hope. So as this is a story
about women it is a story about hope. Had this been only a story about men and not entailed
some story of women, then this might very well have been a story without much hope.
On a metal walkway across the lines, a suited figure walked, then stopped midway and
grasping the yellow catwalk rails, peered down in what seemed to be her direction. In a strange
way, the mirror of the persons visor reflected a tassel of flame, a fire she could see but could not
identify, from the smelters over past the sorting bins and washer tanks perhaps.
and so what is you staring at take a picture why dont ya some of these peoples are fools not much
sense in them shouldnt say that gertrude called and told me that daisy just heard that her son
darryl was killed in iraq said that he was killed fixing a jeep or something in that it fell and killed
him instantly gertrude said that was sadder than if he had been killed in fighting and I said why is
that and she said cause he could have died like that over here he didnt need be all the way over in
iraq to die cause a car fell on him and I said but he was still over there fighting for our country
and gertrude said fighting for our country are you serious there is nothing of our interest over
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there and so even if he had died fighting it could have been no less a travesty and I could tell she
was getting angry and when I tried to say that all war was a travesty for some reasons only god
knows I said transvestite a word I had never said before and gertrude got some kicks out of that
but I knew that most of her anger and her way of talking like this was on account of her husband
jackson who was the loudest loud mouth there was when it came to these kinds of things and
generally speaking when he was around shooting his mouth off she was a quiet as a dormouse
but when she was alone with others she seemed to take on jacksons loud mouth characteristics
for herself and so here she was doing just that and so I just let her vent because who cares when
it all comes down to it we been sending our boys here and there or as long as anyone can
remember and they some back some of them but some of them dont and some of them that come
back come back broken and none here seems to want to take care of the broken ones and so these
poor boys got a war of their own to fight back here after the ruination of war over there but I
never said any of that because I can only imagine how that would tick her off on to some parade
that I really couldnt afford none to hear but when I said transvestite we both then laughed a good
one

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systems are up and running where and when you need them.
Of what stock was woman, of what bone, of what mass, what substance? Of same stock
as men or of sturdier constitution? For what remains when all has been denied, when all has
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collapsed? The person on the ramp still stood there, the flames still flickering in the faceshield.
She noticed that the level of the black water that washed off the plastics was falling and so she
squeezed a handle which opened the spigot of flush. The water for reasons she did not know was
black like ink and the blades that kept the bits of plastic pushed against the screws appeared
melted into the water as they revolved only to be reconstituted again on the other side. So clean
is this water they said that they used it to fill the big old aquarium in the lobby where the same
fish swam for years she was sure, the water did not kill them but them neither did any river
dirtier than the water in here. There was a loud crash behind her as the hammermill was starting
up again. She looked up and the figure on the catwalk was gone.
so who in hells water was that staring down here as if they had something to say to me im sure I
will hear something about all that is going on can see crackers looking over at me probably
wondering the same thing youd think people could mind their own business for once cept that
never happens but Im sure Im gonna hear it on account of that young walkers poor girl being
raped and someone saying walker had something to do with it when in fact he couldnt have and
flint the bastard is just up to something no good flint is the one who started it the rumors and
such if there was one mistake walker made that was greater than any other it was giving life to
that evil beast of a man which everyone knows of but never talks of on account of the sheriff and
all but thats how men are always at war one way or another and now this new kid justin telling
me that he wants divorced as he does not love his katy anymore and I said well that is your
decision justin but it is one of those decisions that you cannot go back on very easily once youve
made that decision and announce that decision and he said that he knew that and that he had
waited on it long and hard and I said well I dont doubt that but you are but twenty two and so I
am not sure you yet know what it requires to wait long and hard on much and so you best wait on

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it some more before you do something you regret and I asked him what his father thought about
it and he said his father dont care none and his mother is off gone to another state with another
guy and then he asked me but how come me and Walker never got divorced if yens hate each
other so much and I said thats because when a man and woman marry they takes a vow and if
you believe in that vow you can believe in it stronger than you believe in your spouse and that is
one way of saying that you believe in yourself stronger then you believe in anything else and so
if that is making sense that is why that is the answer to your question I guess I see he said I just
dont know well I said you think more about it justin you will never regret thinking about
something as much as that thinking may torment you not nearly as much as you might regret
doing something you cant reverse but seems all the kids these days are getting divorced as if
there was nothing to it which it is suppose a result of their upbringings and so we got a take some
responsibility for it and not simply blames them all the time

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This factory was the cycle of life and death made manifest, made insensate, being as it
were a plant that took what was used and dead and through pressure, fire, water and force
brought what was dead back to use, brought it back to life, took the poisonous junk and sludge
that life becomes when it is spent and molded that junk, cleaned the sludge and purified it upon
flame and in the application of cleansing water, and from beneath that dross came purity again,
came life from flame, came something good and meaningful again that could be separated from

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WALKER
the poisonous atmosphere, the poisoned waters that still ran on. The hammermill pounded like a
giant striking the earth with a steady force.
made a real perty dress for monicas birthday tomorrow which I know her mother will like told
fred when I was coming in here tonight that I would drive him and nancy over with me to the
party but he said he had something else to attend to but to give nancy a call so I has gotta do that
on my break or it will be too late when I am done dont know why fred cant just tell her but then
who can figure these things out fred has been here longer than any of us and they is supposed to
keep him around to make sure the plant closes down just right and so hes got two more years he
says before he is out to pasture but I knows fred and nancy and they have for sure saved a good
bit to make it through all this last winter I went over there and she show me all her canned goods
and peaches and pears and strawberries she has packed reminds me of the days we worried about
the bomb those were good days looking retroactively at it all actually all of us looking out for
ourselves and each other making preparations something cozy about having the rooms in the
basement all set up like they were someones guest house or a place to get away to all dark of
course and then walker had to painted up them two bears right there in the main room the kids
wouldnt go down there after that and I told him what if there was a bomb and we had to go down
there why the kids would be more scared of them bears than the bombs I think he done did that
on purpose that would be him alright used to worry about callaway though living like he was in a
super skyscraper in chicago right up there where is something were to happen he would be in the
worst shape as any I suppose I told him suppose they stop the elevators you aint in no shape to
go thirty forty floors by them stairs and he said that he had all the wine he needed to get through
a bomb attack not to worry and I said well what happens if they bomb things and one of them
things is your building and down it all comes and he said well at least I got several hundred

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people below me to cushion my fall and I said now I know you like to be joking like this
especially when things get serious but this is one of them things that could be serious and he said
if and when such a thing should happen I will be the first to say this is serious as much as he kids
callaway is the one man who made his way okay through life all the way to the end which is
where we are most prone to screw up none of the others have a ounce of sense or a sliver of
aptitude to do anyone good for anyone not even themselves seems the women always cleaning
up always picking up the pieces always the ones left to be at home always the ones to find the
money when the money is gone to find a way callaway I gotta say was not of that mold and how
he done broke that mold I dont know but I wish I could find a way to put that mold on some of
the youngens here before it is too late for them and then there is flint him being all walkers
making and probably the making of his end suppose he deserves it absalom alright

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From death, from the elements of death comes life, from the inert paste of earth comes
something the earth cannot produce on its own in this purity, from the unpure comes the pure,
powerful and simple, from this body of metal and poison issues forth new life, new power, issues
forth something new and pure, a miracle of sorts, a miracle of man and woman, that something
so clean could come from a place so vile and unclean.
forgot that today they take our blood tests again no time to call nancy at the break should give us
a separate break to take our blood who wants to spend their fifteen minutes of break having a
needle stuck in your arm been stuck so many times now all my veins done dried up and
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disappeared so it takes them even longer with me told me to drink some water before they draw
that that would help I heard in some other factory they just make you spit in a tube and in some
they just take a bit it hair so why do they here need to stick us all not like it aint uncomfortable
enough to be wearing these suits and never be able to talk or listen to anyone all shift long might
as well be on the moon darryl once said and carl said and a moon made out of lead which made
everyone laugh cuz it seemed so plausible why hadnt anyone of us thought of that before but
now that I replay that story I am not sure why darryl also said he saw walker long ago working
on the church said the man was hanging like a daredevil from the steeples welding that cross in
place and I said well you got that half right and darryl said nothing but monica started to laugh
and her nose began to bleed like that last time that happened and she had to go home and did not
come back for a week

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This is a story about women, but as it is a story about women it too must be a story about
men, as those stories are intertwined, one about the other, one inside the other, one enwrapped in
another, just like a father enwraps a daughter and a husband and a wife, man enwraps woman,
and from this the story of women emerges. The suited person returns to the catwalk, she flips a
sign at the stranger, a sign with her hand that is neither hello or go away, but the person does not
react. There is a rushing roar and a flickering of lights as if a lighting storm had erupted inside
the factory wall. At the far end of the plant, molten lad was poured from large encrusted buckets,
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down burning chutes where the river of hot metal poured into molds, poured into little pigs and
fat hogs.
now who in the harry truman is that there again walkers been in this kind of trouble before and
he will be in it again I cant be tailing after him not me I learned better seems like now with the
factory closing everyone is convinced the town now is dying or dead and that would be hard to
refute given that they are also closing the sylvania plant and with the backhoe factory closed last
year the trains wont be stopping here no more keith and melba were talking in this manner and I
said that was just poppycock I said as this town has been through worse than this and we all
remember that and melba said that we used to be the backhoe capital of the world and now that is
gone its all gone and keith said that what I said may be true but this time it looks worse as what
saved us last time was we went to war and they needed us to work but right now we is in a war
maybe two or three if I am not to be mistaken and they are telling us they dont need any of us
anytime soon and melba said that you can tell the world is changing when all our jobs go to india
and all the Indians come here to be our doctors and accountants and I immediately thought of my
fathers doctor who was really good I thought and I said well we got something special here and
we got some special people look at who comes from here we got that doctor carothers who
invented nylon and we got kay orr the first lady governor anywheres and we got kurt warner king
aroo and of course fred mertz probably the most famous of them all and so we gots abilities to
fix what we want to fix we got snake alley is all we got keith said and I said yes we gots snakes
alley yes we gots that too and I left them thinking how can them two live together like that filled
all up so with such negativity why it must eat at them if we was really dying why would frank
dyson be asking me to sell the property for so much money I ask I know its so he can build
another one of his mansions like he did across the road selling them things faster than he could

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build them all these doctors coming here need them big houses and frank just came over no more
than two weeks ago saying he was wondering how I was doing when in effect I knew he was
coming to see if I was still alive and then he asked if I had thought of selling this property and I
said to frank now how can you be considering to buy this house when you can barely fits
yourself in through the front door for frank was a huge man taller than our door it seemed and
almost broader than it too and he laughed and his huge belly shook like it was alive all by itself
and if I was dead then I suppose he thinks he has a way to get the property for himself he did so
to his brother took the property away from his brother even though his brother is still alive even
the property given to them both by their father who did die and frank did gyp his own brother out
of the family fortune and then he went and put his own mother in the nursing home and never
bothers so much as to visit her none so she told me herself the other day when I stopped by so if
they is building all these mansion and cant build them fast enough for the people who want to
buy them then how can anyone say this town is dying they says poor people are the most
generous and so when I took up a collection on account of mabel who is burying tommy this
weekend and hasnt got a dime yet I expected to get some response here at work but to my
surprise not a person has come forth the jar out there with tommys picture of him smiling on it is
as empty as a promise and now I am ashamed that I told mabel that I was going to do this cause
what happens if I show her an empty jar it will break her heart youd think people would toss
something in just knowing that but I guess they are all afraid and paying for someones death
doesnt buy away any of that fear not like when we took up a collection to buy carolyns son dillon
a new set of arms and hands cuz then the jar was full almost as soon as we set it out and it filled
up three times over that and even stanley put up for the cause real generous like which was good
cause then we got dillon a really good set of pinchers as larry called them it is so amazing to see

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that kid do things with them metal pinchers which just goes to show how kids learn to do with
what they got and makes you truly wonder what other kids could accomplish if they would just
use what they got naturally as here that kid was certainly born with less than many but he is sure
a lesson to us all now bob creighton lost both his feet when his car broke down in a blizzard and
like a fool he tried walking home in the snow that night and he aint never learned how to walk
again if he was a kid hed be up playing football and all sorts of stuff who is that up on that
catwalk I gots to know seems to me theyre eyeing me cuz of the talk about walker heard
someone say I aint a wife like others well walker on account of flint got himself into this and he
done going to have to dig himself for whys have I got to suffer on account of it suffer for what
for what for what for what and I say well let him vanish as he once cometh I aint and here I am
in this here suit thinking maybe I am protected from all this maybe protected from the poisonous
gas here but not protected from the poisonous life men create all around us just waiting it seems
for flow of this here oxygen to stop for the machines to run all crazed like for catching us by
finger and foot for the fires to burst through these pipes for the water to turn back to acid and so
melt us to our bones for the molten lead to catch fire and turn our bones to ash for the roof over
us to cleave like a dropped egg and crack open to a sky that aint heaven but hell turned upside
down upon us for the concrete below us to sift away like sand for the air at my feet to become
heavy with worms and for time to become a panting in my ears a hammering in my skull a
hissing and a whispering reminding me of doom just like a dream well I know doom knows it
well

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52 | P a g e

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And so what if what issues forth from these caverns had some permanence, some lasting
presence, some force of permanent change? Then man and woman would be of little importance
and of even lesser use, for what are men and women but the agents of procreation, the tillers of
the dead and the producers of the new and living?
speaking of which who could forget the poor guy who went crazed once cant remember his name
anymore said he had ants in his suit said they were climbing his legs he darn near fell into the
machinery couldnt hear him but sure was scary watching him fight within himself tumbling and
rolling all over the floor kicking and scratching and by some miracle missing the gears and the
grabbers that would have torn him up once and for all figured he had something wrong all right
but when they got the suit off there was nothing nothing at all and they didnt even stop the shift
never said a word as if nothing happened though they had a woman come for us to talk to if we
wished a mental psychologist they said so that we could to talk with anyone if we had some
confusion or bad feelings which was natural to have they said still sometimes I cant help
wondering what working here does to ones person nothing human about this stuck in this here
suit all the damn day and you knows the stuff these suits was supposed to keep out gets in here
can feel him like some critters inside here mother used to say without work we would be nothing
but what is this but nothing what is this life but nothing sometimes and the men who run these
factories what do they care I told scott at our meal break and he said that was not the point that
americas business had to run on the principals of business and not just to keep everyone
employed and I said well and who makes up them principles you are talking about and scott said
they are not so much made up as they are simply principles like laws that we got to follow and I
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said but dont we make up the laws too and so dont we make up the law off business and carl
said then the law of business are more like the laws of science you mean they are more like the
laws of god I said in a way they are carl said and I said that was a bunch of poppycock the laws
of business are just the laws of men who are seeing to it that they get what they can no
accounting for any of us and scott said well that is why women arent business men and I said you
are damn right about that scott women are not business men by definition women are business
women and he just got up and left leaving behind a small tub of rice pudding his wife had made
for him which I then ate as if to get back at him and I figured this was just the topic I would
bring up tonight on the plain truth all this talk about the laws of men and the law of business we
damn well know where these law come from sounds a lot like callaway and I am used to arguing
with this with callaway the one thing I dont care for with callaway is that he seems to have
learned some things from that first wife of his that dont sit well with me he says that we each
need to take care of ourselves first and if we each take care of ourselves first then everyone
would be better off if we continue to care more for others than ourselves then others do not learn
to care for themselves all of which I told him I agreed to but that there were times in this life
when we had to care for others as that was what charity was all about and he said we would not
need charity if things were like I said and is aid well there are many people who would like the
world to be different than it is but it aint it is this way and so we gotta deal with the world the
way it presents itself to us and he said I was not understanding his point and this is where I
sometimes get mad at callaway as he seems to forget that he comes from the same stinking little
house we all come from he played in the same dirt we did ate the same food and we all come
from the same place so why is he so uppity but it was his wife that done that to him she hated me
and I returned the flavor I suppose but it has been years since them two divorced and yet I can

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still see that resipoo of her in him why did walker have to go father himself a son when he had
his own son to attend to did so in the same year same month just so as to create a fire in our
house that we could never put out just so he could destroy what could have been good just so he
could make sure there was one less thing of beauty untouched on this earth

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This is a story about women and as such men too figure in to what must be said, for this
is a story about women who see themselves as they see themselves in men, as they see
themselves as daughters who looked into the faces of fathers, as they see themselves as sisters
that looked into the faces of brothers, as they see themselves as wives who looked into the faces
of husbands, and as they see themselves as widows looking into the faces of the dead, of the men
who to the end failed to look back, to answer a stare.
amy sue asked me the other day if it was true if that had been me on the radio and I told her no
why would I be on the radio and she said well that there were a number of folks who seemed
right in believing that it was I on the radio on some late show about ufos and aliens and if that
was so it was okay with her but for some other folk they seemed to be a little bothered with it all
and I told her that I knew nothing about this here radio show and she said well I aint even told
you the name of it and then I knew that she was not believing me and was not going to believe
me and so I decided to let it go and she never brought it up again I suppose for some it might be
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hard to understand which is why I take the preconscious I do but it seems the preconscious is not
enough well we are supposed to be a free society a democraty with free speech and all that but
when it comes to speaking what you want well that is a different matter too many times I learned
my lessons about that by golly and so I have to admit it is nice to have a group of likeminded
citizens who once in a while can speak what they like and express their opinions and not worry
so much about what others are going to say we all share this life and we all want a good thing for
us and our children but we all may have different ways to think about that and callaway is one
who certainly does have a diffident way of thinking about these things but for most of us even
when we share certain beliefs such as we hate this here big government and we resent this
government with its hands in our pockets and its cameras following what we do all the time in
every place even the bathroom is seems that we can all agree on and how we all like to say we
got free speech that we americans can say and speak any ways we want well I say to that you
never worked in the armament plant now did you cuz if you did then you would have learned
what free speech was about you sure would have why we could say a word about nothing we
couldnt say a word about whether we was too hot or too cold let alone anything else and if we
did you got in real trouble but then if I was to say that it aint hard to see how there is a link
between this government and satan then I see others back away as if I done gone too far but they
on the other hand dont go far enough we got this here government which is all about killing us
either through poverty or through fear or sending us off to wars they create not us and they dont
wonder a damn about how it got that way and so I suppose I am offering an answer of sorts and
there is plenty of evidence to prove that what I say is true and controversial evidence that people
dont want to hear about just like they dont want to hear about the bible either and the bible is in
their interest nor is it in their interest to hear about how satan has perpetrated our government

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and now our lives and so where does that leave them in some middle nowheres land is where and
what are they going to do there well they are going to get caught in the middle of all this and
have nothing to do and nothing to do about any of it that is what is going to happen I suppose
actually they think I am crazy the crazy woman over down on west avenue road is probably what
they call me havent had an attic for years now and yet I am sure that is what they say cant help it
the doctor says I got some chemical mix up in my body and a mix up in my brain probably more
on account of them pills they gave me when the young walker was born remember them telling
me it was post possum depression or something akin to that but still they all remembers the latter
days when it was not in so much control I was clearly out of balance dont like to remember
them days either but not much I can do about that just got to move on and move forward suppose

The one thing that really makes EnerStor better than anything one else is the people. You
pick one reason and its simple, its the people. Thats why we are successful. We provide the
right technology for the right applications and we stand behind it. That is what EnerStor is
about.
Driving the claw that filled the crushing bin of the hammermill, guiding the sluices,
monitoring the feeds and clearing the screws, steering the plastics into the shredder, clearing the
acid and draining the vats for the boys in purification, eyeing the lead bits as they climbed to the
smelters, skimming the dross and empting the slop, sampling the stew, pouring the ingots,
stamping her initials in the sixty five pound pigs and the two thousand pound hogs, inventorying
the packing and shipment of the lead as it was lifted by crane and deposited on trucks for the
casting plant: these things she had done in her forty years here amidst the poisonous clouds and
dead earth, amidst the clamor, clatter and asphyxiation of production.
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was athinking how today I got up to find the writer in the kitchen with walker whod a figured
that might have happen huh wonder if walker thinks something probably doesnt care cant say I
care too much as much as I like the writer he is not really from around here and I can tell we are
running out of things to talk about well I am running out of things as he does not have much to
say which youd think he would being a writer someone who could make up things all the time
never read anything that he wrote though he gave me a little book on the color blue and yes I did
read it a little bit a few pages well a few lines anyway couldnt fathom what that was about for
anything let it fall behind the bed keep meaning to fetch it back out and perhaps give it another
try wouldnt want to see him again and him ask me what I thought and then what would I say
couldnt make anything up not after reading a few lines and realizing it is kind mumbo jumbo
maybe give it to walker to read while he is in his cell give him something to do something to take
his mind of his next evil deed

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WALKER

AUTUMN

Walker stood in front of the living room window, looking out over the front lawn littered
with the brickred and leadyellow maple leaves that were beginning to fill a grassy ravine, a
manmade gulley designed to carry off underground river waters before they could flood the
basement. Past the ravine, the land rose up again to meet the gravel covered road. Between the
road and the stubbles of harvested corn fields and the sky grey with an even layer of clouds too
dense for the afternoon sun to be more than a low ubiquitous light, a man stood.
This was a familiar, stout shape with snow white hair that near daily passed this way,
standing in about the same place where it was stationed this afternoon, the distance too great to
see what those distant eyes were focused on, but facing the window it could have been Walker
this man was watching, as if waiting for him to move, do something. She said he was a writer.

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The writer had been in their house, she had invited him in for tea, he had small hands she
said and talked from a mouth formed by small plump lips and so made his voice sound small as
well. His daily afternoon walk consisted of coming from the edge of town where he lived, down
the part of the road that was covered with asphalt, then walking down the gravel covered
continuation all the way to the old schoolhouse, stopping just before the tall wire gates that
marked the entrance to the old armament plant, then turning around and walking back again. He
usually stopped where he was now stopped on his way back. She said he liked to listen to her
talk, he never had much to say himself, just uh huh and is that so and things like that that told her
he was listening. The writer had a wife, a woman who was younger than him and pretty well
known in town, an architect, a smart woman who apparently did not care that her man was
having tea with the neighbors wife while the husband hers and wife his were away.
To be a writer was to create nothing out of nothing, Walker reckoned. Sure, books were
things made of paper, glue and some stitchings maybe. But what was the thing a writer created?
Someone else made the books, made dozens of them, hundreds, millions maybe like Bibles. The
writer did not make them. The writer did not make the words either, but borrowed them
completely. Words came not from the ground, not of the earth, were just taken from what we are
forced to learn, to repeat and say to others like some invisible play currency without any real
value. And I know words. Perhaps a writer was like a cook, he reckoned, the cook cant make a
new vegetable or a new meat, can just mix what others grew and made for him. But with the
cook there was something there that the cook made, when Walker built something out of
someone elses wood or iron, there was a new thing unique and of individual character. When he
painted there was something there that he had made and no one else could say they made. He
borrowed or bought the canvas and all the paints, but in the end he had made something of his

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own efforts and imagination. The writers wife made buildings, structures of iron wood and
stone, glass and concrete, things undeniable and real. Her husband made nothing, had nothing to
show, no wonder his hands were so small, they grasped nothing heavier than a pencil. How
miserable a life that must be, he pondered, to begin each day and leave each day with nothing to
look back upon, nothing to show others, just some pages with words and probably crappy stories
no one would read. What happens to a life like that? What does that life look at as it approached
the end? What does it measure itself by? How high a pile of books is? The number of letters
collected from the sea of humanity and typed like little branding irons into a page? Does it feel
empty to be surrounded by nothing of your own that is real, nothing that can be touched, nothing
that stops the wind, that protects against the rain, that keeps you warm? What are we of this
earth if we cannot scrape up some bits of that earth and mold it into our possessions? And why
create what no one cares to ever see? Why create something no one will ever know existed?
What did the writer do for him? For anyone for that matter? How did he fit into the chain of
being that is recycled year after year and seasons after season, crop after crop? Walker did not
feel any feelings of superiority over the writer, he did not harbor any resentment. Walker simply
could not understand.
The figure on the near horizon did not move, only the hair flipping in the breeze giving a
sense of life to man otherwise motionless.
In the end who is more selfish, Walker wondered, me or the writer? The writer stops and
thinks about the world but does nothing. I take up time thinking about the writer thinking and
doing nothing. Which is the greater waste of time? And so who has used time more foolishly?
Walker wondered for a moment about going to the writers house one day and asking to see his
wife. He thought that would be a moment they would all remember. The writers wife would
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have to take his invitation, wouldnt she? After all, her husband had on many occasions visited
his wife. There was a debt owed here somehow. A reciprocation that needed to be fulfilled.
Walker knew they would talk about building, about creating, and he imagined that this debate
would create a jealousy in the writer who probably never talked with his wife about creating
since he created nothing. Walked wondered if the writers wife would take an interest in what he
knew about buildings, how he had done his own studies, not the university sort, but studies done
with his own mind, with his own observations and of course with his own efforts taking things
apart and putting them together, out of that process he had learned a great deal about building,
perhaps more about building than one would learn only from books or drawings, as in those
efforts one never went through the process of making things fit, of seeing how they were
constructed. And maybe the writers wife would realize from talking with Walker that she was
missing something too, that despite her schooling she did not know all there was to know about
buildings, and that a man like Walker had much to tell her, much to teach her. And maybe this
would further irritate the writer who had never taught this woman anything, not with hands so
small and a mouth so tight it looked like a wet coin purse. Walker imagined that writer would
grow so agitated, he would probably be in the other room or downstairs in a basement study, but
listening all the same. While he talked with the writers wife, and she would laugh and they
would shout things in a simultaneous fashion as if discovering something at the same time, he
imagined the writer would get so enraged that the writer would hope, pray that his wife and this
man would actually have carnal relations, perhaps right there on the floor, so that he could hear
it, he could hear her, their bodies banging on the floor above, Walker imagined the writer wished
for this because this would be the only way the writer could live with his jealousy by knowing
that their relationship, this relationship between Walker and the writers wife, had a base, a carnal

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aspect that the writer could at his choosing tear into and attack, for what he could not attack was
that Walker had his wifes attention and perhaps her affection because of what he knew, because
of what he was and what the writer wasnt, the writer could not attack Walker for what Walker
had and the writer did not.
The writer stood at the edge of the gravel road, looking towards the house, his white hair
drifting in the wind and his face reddening, but too far away for Walker to know of what
expression he wore.
These thoughts did not do Walker well. For just as before he realized that he was
spending his time thinking of thoughts that would not only never happen, but thoughts that were
of no consequence, no value. It was as if Walker himself were writing a book now, creating a
story of something that would never happen, filling pages with words that no one would ever
ever read, and so these thoughts of revenge on the writer for visiting his wife were creating in
him the same worthlessness that Walker had come to revile in the writer, he was not feeling
vindicated by these thoughts, he was becoming the writer himself, he was shrinking in
significance to the world, he was beginning, even if only for these few moments, to disappear.
It was too cold for the writer to be standing so long outside. He had never met the writer
but he knew instinctively that the writer was a man of blubbery soft but frail constitution. The
bitter autumn cold must be ripping at him, his eyes must be tearing, his nose running, his skin
turning white and his tight little lips stretching into two quivering lines of blue. Was the writer in
trouble? Why did he stand there and not come this way for a drink or head back to his home? If
he continued his walk he might not make it back, they might find him frozen, stiff as a log. There
were wild dogs down by the old armament plant, had not the writer encountered those dogs on
his walks? Those dogs were vicious, and probably hungry as ever in these sparse and cold
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conditions. How could he the writer fend off those dogs if they chose to attack, he had just those
little hands and short fat legs, those dogs would rip him apart, carry him off to all corners of the
fields here. The writers wife would never find all those parts, but someone would have to
oversee their collection and their placement in a casket, put them back together best anyone
could manage. Walked thought about opening the front door and signaling for the writer to come
in, it was too far to shout, his words might be misunderstood, if he shouted: Why dont you come
in for a drink? the writer at that distance and in this wind might very well hear him say: Why do
you get on home you fat writer of junk?
Walker got up, opened the front door and waved to the writer standing by the gravel road.
He soon regretted this action as the writer did nothing for the longest time, then finally the writer
raised his hand and waved back. No! Walker swore. The writer did not understand that his
gesture was not one of saying hello but was a gesture that very clearly meant come here, come
into the warmth of my house little man. And Walkers first impulse was not to repeat it but let
this be, let this invitation be misunderstood as that meant he would not have to entertain the
writer after all and could continue to enjoy his own solitary afternoon. Or, Walker thought, he
could repeat the gesture and exaggerate it so that there could be no possible misunderstanding by
the writer of what his gesture meant, but Walker hesitated again, thinking perhaps it was best to
leave the writer be, why invite him in when he did not want to invite him in, and for Christs sake
why did he want to do that anyway, what would be the point, so that he could look at the mans
tearing eyes and running nose? so that he could shake those small, puny and probably soft
hands? so that he could get this man a drink and then find himself sitting across from him at the
kitchen table with nothing in the world to speak of or about? The thoughts horrified him and yet
he stepped outside again and again raised his hand and this time with a more exaggerated gesture

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he waved to the writer to come into the house. Again the writer stood there by the edge of the
gravel road and did nothing. Walker turned around and closed the glass storm door. He was
about to close the main wooden door when he looked and saw that the writer had disappeared.
The writer was gone. Walker was at first shocked, then relieved. The writer had gone home,
Walker surmised, which was the best thing he could do, but then Walker wondered if the writer
had misunderstood his gesture, perhaps the writer had interpreted his wave to come into the
house as a wave telling him to scram, get lost. He did not wave back. He just disappeared. But
just then, just before Walker closed the wooden door, the writer suddenly ascended the porch and
stood just inches from the storm door.
Sorry I didnt see you, Walker said with a smile that seemed to shock the writer who did
in fact have small watery eyes and a runny nose.
Thats okay, said the writer with a sniff, I was walking behind your tall hedges there, your
hedges are very tall.
Suppose they could use a trimming, Walker said, never noticed it much myself, but you
may be right, may need a trimming this spring.
The writer had been in this house before, a few times before, but always with her not with
him, and so even those things which were familiar looked different as if Walker affected these
things, transmuted them through his presence into things that required an explanation that would
never be forthcoming. He looked across the living room with its heavy carpet of some faint
animal print. Sofas and chairs were covered with decorative cloths, most of the furniture was
organized around the flagstone fireplace where a flickering electronic log was sentried by two
replica lawn jockeys with hideously exaggerated negroid features. Above the fireplace was a
strange clock that flashed the time in multiple colors arranged in a sophisticated but gaudy inner
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WALKER
mechanism of gears. An electronic organ was against the far wall above which were more of the
photographs of kids and relatives recent and long past. A wrought iron railing followed carpeted
stairs to an upper level, at the base of the stairs was a stucco planter, filled with fake greenery
and what appeared to be dozens of ceramic farm, circus, and jungle animals all communing
blissfully.
Sure is getting cold out aint it? Walker asked.
It is isnt it, the writer answered.
Yepper, sure seems so, Walker said, going to get colder too they say, cold enough you
might needs to be careful, you know?
You mean me? asked the writer. Walker just smiled and looked at his own feet.
Without a word, Walker turned and led them into the kitchen. The writer took off his
gloves, shoved them in the pockets of a denim jacket too thin for the sudden cold outside, then
wrestled a bit to pull the jacket from his round fat shoulders. He looked about before deciding to
hang the jacket on a doorknob in the living room.
What Walker had feared most was now going to happen. He looked at the Formica table
and the plastic covered chairs and saw where he had been seated and saw the empty seat where
the writer would be seated and they would be directly across from each other, face to face in that
way, locked into some kind of man to man intercourse. And as the darkness came earlier now,
they soon would not have even the scenery and random things outside to draw their attention
away from themselves, they would be left only with each other. He looked around and realized
he was looking at things as he thought the writer must see things, that is, he was looking at things
in this kitchen as if they belonged to her, not to him, as undoubtedly the writer, having been here

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before with her, was taking stock of those things he had seen when he had come to visit her and
was now seeing them for the first time with the man of the house in the house. There werent
much here that was his, Walker observed, pretty much her things in her house and not much he
could do about it.
Whiskey?
No thanks, the writer said, I dont drink, but some green tea would be nice.
Green tea, Walker muttered wondering at the same time what it would look like if he
found it and how one made green tea once you found it.
The writer waited as Walker walked to the far end of the kitchen and begin looking
through some cabinets for the tea. This man Walker was smaller than he had imagined, yet he
had a rugged exterior, little fat on the body, this could be seen in the ripples of muscle in his neck
and forearms, the thin waist and small hips on which he wore a thin black belt. His skin was
dark, partly due to the sun, partly due to a natural olive complexion rare in these areas, there was
a cold look to his face, chiseled and handsome. He saw Walkers cup of coffee at one seat at the
kitchen table, the seat where he usually sat when he was with her, and so assumed he would take
the other seat, the seat where she usually sat. He recognized that this would be the first time he
sat in this kitchen and would not be able to see directly out the window into the yard, the garden
and out to the barn in back. He would be facing Walker directly, without much else to look at.
For this reason, he decided to take his time before sitting down and instead wandered about a few
feet this way and a few feet that way, looking far more closely than he had before at all the knick
knacks, figurines and collectibles from every cheap novelty store between here and Los Angeles.
Walker was still searching for the tea.
Coffee will be fine, the writer said.
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WALKER
You sure, Walker said from his knees, his head in a lower cupboard. Ah! Found it. I
figured we had it though no one here drinks it - Walker hesitated - not that I know of. He placed
the box of tea bags on the counter and set a kettle of water to boil.
The writer was still standing, pacing a bit looking at all of her things on all the shelves he
had built for her. The writer was round in nearly all aspects, round of head, round of shoulder,
round of belly and hip, and his small hands were round as well, plump with tiny roundish fingers.
This entire day was different than usual. Was he being sucked into the writers life or was the
writer being sucked into his life, Walker wondered. If he was being sucked into the writers life,
then was he also in danger of becoming a part of the writers book? Perhaps his wife was
already part for that book and so the writer had to spy on him the way he was doing so as to gain
some perspective of what he, the husband of his wife, would be like, what that character would
be like for that book. Would the writer take a liking to him and make him a character one liked
in this book, or would he in fact be the villain, as most surely the writer liked his wife best and so
would make her a character the reader liked and so he would in fact have to be a character the
reader disliked. So if this was to be the case, Walker reckoned, I might as well play the part of
the despicable husband the best I can then huh?
Excuse me? the writer asked.
Milk, sugar, Walker asked again.
Neither, the writer said, so you built this house did you?
Yep.
How long did it take you?

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WALKER
Reckon it took about six months, partly on account of the weather not cooperating, but it
aint the weathers business to cooperate now is it.
I guess not, seems sturdy.
No twister done tooker down yet.
That could just be luck I guess.
If it aint luck, then I guess its something moren luck, I reckon. The kettle began to
whistle.
The writer had taken an immediate disliking to this man, perhaps it was his dirty olive
sundarkened skin, his shadowy features, the black, oily hair, the large calloused hands engrained
with grime that were now busy making his tea. He had in fact been prepared to like this man, in
some ways predisposed due to the terrible things Walkers wife had said about him, no man
could be so bad, so terrible and so he had wanted to like this man, to find someone that shared
this side of life with him. But it was clear that this comradeship was not going to be possible. It
was not simply the physical features that brought this reaction to the writer, it was what those
features had been designed to enclose, to hide, to keep under wrap. What truly perturbed him
about Walker was what seethed and ran below the surface of this man, what was not showing,
what would not be said, what could not be even guessed at. Walked brought the cup of tea over
to the table and the writer sat down in her seat across from where Walker then took his seat
behind his cold cup of coffee.
Thank you, the writer said. Walker nodded as if in quick but awkward prayer.
Your wife? the writer asked.
Still asleep, shes an owl she is, up the night, sleeps the day, most of the day anyway.
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WALKER
She would be getting up soon, to get herself ready for the night shift at the battery
factory. Shed come out here, probably in her nighties, the ones you can see through and what
you see aint what you want to see, thatll scare him. Or maybe hes seen that already. He had
looked down at his coffee wishing he had gotten himself a whiskey while he had been up,
reckoning it would be a bit rude to jump right back up again after giving the writer his tea, and
ruder still to drink whiskey while the writer drank tea, which the writer still had not taken a sip
of, perhaps he had made it wrong, or something, then finally the writer took a sip and from a
small smile on his tight little mouth seemed satisfied. He was older than he thought, Walker
thought, must be in his seventies, and his wife being only in her fifties, what can you say to that?
The old man is not so bad off after all. Cant be love at this age, this land here dont make for
too much love, cant last but a few years anyway, the land here, life on the land here takes over
after a while, dulls everything love, pain, everything, nothing stays as bright or sharp after
awhile. Life dulls the senses, lets us live out our time in more moderation, he supposed.
Gotta watch them dogs out there you know, Walker said, I seen you walking clear up by
the armament plant and there is a pack of wild dogs who is not so nice to everyone.
You mean - , the writer began to say.
Them dogs up yonder, Walker said speaking louder.
Ive seen them, the writer said, I didnt realize they were wild.
Used to belong to Old Altschuler before he died. Nobody took care of them and so being
on their own they just begun to run wild until now they know nothing but the wild ways they
now embrace. Bit a few folks though. Youd think someone would take a gun to them, but
seems no one wants to be the ones to do it. Just a warning.

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Would you shoot them? the writer asked.
Me, no, aint never killed an animal in my life, except if I had to, put them out of some
misery, you know, happens you know, who knows may be the only man around here who can say
a thing like that, nothing religious in me about that, just never saw occasion or need to, came
close though once, when these coyotes done tore up Ol Pal, I would have had I had a ways to
kill them.
Your dog?
Best damn dog I ever had.
Need to watch out for coyotes too then, huh?
Nah, them critters are cowards deep down, howl a good bit but theyd run from you
before you could see their stinking little eyes. Wild dogs aint afraid of human smells, thats
where they grew up, probably got swatted and kicked a few times to boot, so dogs have
vengeance on top of hunger driving them. Coyotes sleep in the wilds, in dens they make in the
fields. Wild dogs still sleep behind barns, under old cars or trucks, they need to be around the
smells of man, its still part of them.
The writer took the advice more seriously than his lack of reaction might have indicated.
He in fact had seen the dogs on a few occasions, more than once they seemed to be running
down the field towards him and he wondered if they were friendly, yet he remembered thinking
of them as notes tumbling across a musical score or bits of sediment floating down a water fall,
not as a dangerous pack of animals descending the hill to tear him limb from limb, but each time,
something stopped them or took their attention in a different direction, or he had turned and
walked away and they seemed to have forgotten about him. He wondered if she would come out

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soon. This was about the time when he would come by and they would share an afternoon cup
of tea. As much as he tried he could not reconcile the face of this woman now with the portraits
of her youth in the frames on the living room walls. Age had not preserved much in the way of
youthful character or form. And seeing Walker in person did not assist him either, as Walker was
definitely still ruggedly handsome, not too much different than what you saw in his pictures from
years ago, and so while he could see the connection between her beauty and his good looks in the
past, there was no connection now. She portrayed a striking beauty in the pictures from her
youth, a beauty that was not only radiant but strong and proud. She never smiled in her
photographs but was poised with a determined look, a gorgeously rare confidence. Even in her
wedding picture she stood taller than Walker, solemn faced, but perfectly proportioned, out of
place, Persephone courageously on her way to hell. Now, she was a weathered, beaten and
shrunken old woman, her face pocked with scars and open sores, her nose deflated and her eyes
disappearing, retreating into her skull. Her lips were chapped and her teeth the color of road
water. She had similar pock marks, white and bloodless, on her forearms, her fingers were think
to the bone, and supported a tangle of blue veins. Beneath her clothes was the body, he was sure,
of a corpse black and blue, shrunken and shapeless, readied for the grave; she wore her flesh
with less burden than the burden of memories, of thoughts, of unforgettable events and
unrealized dreams which weighed on her so and so forbade sleep, stole away reason and
squashed any flicker of joy, made barren any new seed of happiness. Her voice betrayed that
apparition, soft and lilting, spliced with heartland slang, malapropisms, portmanteaus, eggcorns
and mondegreens. And when he visited she always wore a blue sapphire pendant, a simple but
beautiful gem held by a sliver clasp, and the writer wondered if she wore it just for him on these

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occasions when they had tea.

A living book she was, more profound than anything he could

create from the scraggly illformed bits he knew of women.

So what do you do? the writer asked.
Welder by trade I reckon, Walker answered.
Much welding in the winter?
Some, cold dont matter much, can affect the metal some, but you just need to heat it
properly or else it can get brittle, depends.
Not working today though?
Yep, done.
Am I ?
No, no, Walker said, in fact I going to get myself another cup of coffee, more tea?
Walker suddenly perceived the writer as a point in the world where certain things flowed
in and never came back out, that much he could tell, his appearance was deceptive, there was a
subtle force to him, a power that affected him none, but a force he could see had an impact on the
world at times. It was passive not transformative, it was a force that sucked in but did not force
change in the outer direction. Walker struggled with what this meant. There was a strange youth
in the man, despite his obvious age, a youthful aspect of the writer was still untouched, perhaps
that quality was in the eyes, or simply the skin of his face, he could not decide, but it must have
appealed to his wife, a reason she chose to marry someone twenty thirty years older than herself.
Walker felt uncertain about any plans to meet the writers wife, it would not go as planned, he
was certain of that now, not when she saw his chiseled and weathered face, the lines cut by
smoke, the hairless ebony of his hands and forearms. She wanted things soft.
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WALKER
Outside, the sun began to dim, long shadows drawn from barn and trees.
Getting dark earlier each day it seems, Walker commented.
Thats what we get being on a tilted axis, the writer answered.
Theres always something to surprise ones curiosity it seems.
Walkers words stirred immediate feelings of restlessness in the writer. How long ago
had he abandoned the study of things in the world and replaced an appreciation of things with an
mosquito like cloud of words? That was his method now. Sure, he walked these roads each
afternoon and he more than passingly noted the difference in wild flowers through the spring and
summer, the changes in the fields, the animals, the patterns in the soil unknowingly made by
farmers, the carving of talismans preserved in traditions long forgotten, he took notes of the
clouds that constantly struck such incredible sculptures in the sky, sometimes still as ice other
times moving like milk though his tea. And of course here he was sitting in the company of a
person who had no interest in knowing any of this, these were not topics for study, they were
patterns writ in deeper structures than the mind. Walker lived while he did what he could to keep
himself from desiccating away in his closed and stuffy den, stop the shriveling of his body, the
wasting of all but brain that lived, thrived and functioned on nothing more material than words.
Walker, though, made altars out of things everyday, he built places of worship, he found religion
in the shapes of nature, he may not believe but he was able to guide his thoughts based on what
he say and test his theories based on what he built, what he created. While he wrote tomes that
lay buried in breathless silences, Walker built testaments that people could see everyday from
iron pike fences to a sun porch to a bird house for sparrows, Walker was a part of humanity in a
way he would never manage.
Youre a writer right?
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WALKER
Yep.
She done told me.
Uh huh.
Saw a tornado once touch down right out there, not sure you could put that in words.
Probably not.
If not then why?
Why what?
Why write?
Yea. Good question.
Words and me got a peculiar relationship I say, darn peculiar.
It was possible. That alone was amazing to Walker. What had been an impossibility,
beyond thought, beyond even idle contemplation was in fact probably true. Walker saw it in the
writers eyes, the way the writer could not look directly at him unless Walker was looking away
and then while he was looking away he felt the writers eyes on him intensely as if studying him,
trying to penetrate him with a thought or a question that he dared not ask. That was how men
were, they were afraid to confront the truth but dying to know the truth, to have the truth
exposed. That is how Walker knew the writer was having relations with his wife. The thought or
was it a realization bothered him in a way he had not anticipated, it was not jealousy that he felt
but a kind of manipulation, this man had slept with his wife not to have sex with her, but to sit as
he was sitting now before a cuckold, and not just any cuckold but the cuckold of his actions.
That was the perversity of the situation. And Walker instead of being indignant or upset or even
angry, was actually fascinated, for this was a role he had never imagined himself to be in, not
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since they were young, and now, now that they were old, it was a very different experience, it
was as if he had been told he had cancer or that she had died. Yes, while the rage was there it
was mollified by something, by something new and strange, he was powerless to this new thing,
he was not in control, it was as if life had suddenly been revealed to him as a farce, that all that
went on in life was totally and completely out of ones control from the very get go. He had
been living a lie, a lie to himself.
Youre going to this Tommy Johnsons funeral, the writer asked.
Suppose so, seems the right thing to do.
It suddenly occurred to the writer: Of course! Walker was the reinvention of the
landscaper his first wife had galloped away with. Here he was: the same sunbaked skin, the
same oily hair, the same leathery features, the smoke cracked face, the same sinewy arms and
torso hard and wooden compared to his soft and cushy, the yellow teeth, the battered grey and
grimy fingers that she loved to suck and have stuck inside her.
You?
What?
You going?
To the funeral?
Yea.
Didnt know the guy, but still might go. My wife says we should recognize that people
know us even if we dont know them.
For Walker, all he could do was seek revenge for this betrayal. He could not possibly
confront this man, he would not hit him, strike him down, humiliate him, that seemed out of the
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question. Instead he imagined that he would ravish his wife the architect. He would not simply
have intercourse with her, he would take the writers wife to his barn, strap her down, bit in her
mouth, ride her until she neighs. The marks he would leave on her would be much deeper than
what would ever show, she would never take the writers prick again, that he would assure.
If you do, take some gittlings with you.
Some what.
Some food.
Oh, are you supposed to?
Not normally, but they wont have much, no money it seems. I was thinking of swinging
by and giving them a donation to help em out.
The writer suddenly understood that Walker is what women like his wife want, they want
these foul earthen smells, they want this ugly coarseness, perhaps it comes from fathers with
rough hands, smells of smoke and whiskey breath, they dont want to marry it they want to fuck
it, they want to be handled, ridden, held down, debased, dominated, this is a man that could
conquer any woman at any time. What does he offer his wife? Security? If that means being a
husband who will never leave, who is too fat to fuck someone else, who is too old to live through
trying to fuck someone else, who is not going to ever ever leave except in a casket, then yes.
Intellectual stimulation? If that means getting stoned and talking about chaos theory, or drinking
wine and exploring the sexual metaphors in my colleagues papers, or deconstructing the signs
on the roads around town, then yes. Adventure? If that means going out for a catfish sandwich
on a weekday, or springing for a pay per view movie, or joining a wine of the month club, then
yes. Companionship? If that means having someone around who farts under the covers, who

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leaves the toilet lid up, who never washes his dishes, then yes. Stability? If that is defined as
sameness as in blas day after blas year, then yes.
Hear something? Walker asked.
The writer nodded.
The princess has awakened, Walker said.
Vast, bland, clothed in flannel, barefooted, thin, birdlike, dark burgundy hair unfurled,
bloated, sleepy faced, with pale lips as thin as tissue, she walked from bedroom to bath, stopping
for a calico curled near a heater vent.
well for crimes sake missus meow meow you gotta move your little tushy so mommy can
do her morning tinkle hee hee well it aint morning now is it missus meow meow
Solid, water logged, stiff jointed, sore backed, bent at the waist, gouty toed, flabby armed
she leaves the door open as she drops the toilet seat.
Damn inconsiderate men.
Turned around, perfectly position, full bladdered, sated from meatloaf sandwiches early
in the morning, she lifts her gown over lumpy bruised and vein laden thighs, sets herself down,
while beginning to query some late night information.
ughhhh what was that he said last night about disposable thumbs we got them while
critters do not the fast majority know that is that evolution poppycock teach it to our youngins
anyways
Water burbles, hisses and falls.
Sounds like my mare in there, Walker muttered.

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WALKER
Marriage was created to remind us that women the writer began to say.
Formless, shapeless, hunched and ponderous, elbows to knees, feet flat to linoleum floor,
toes crunched, neck muscles struggling, face tense, a bolus erupted.
Welp, perhaps I was wrong, that werent no horse plop, Walker said.
ughh hey missus meow meow almost forgot because of luanne hohrner mommys gotta
go into the factory early today yep cuz of luannes eggtopic pregnancy she cant work it seems
they say she cant get out of bed just lies there curled up in the feeble position all days long them
girls shouldnt be working there ifn theys going go get knocked up like that anyways probably
a good thing its ugghhhhhh sorry for the stinker missus meow meow hee hee but I done smelled
worse things of your doings
The writer coughed.

Walker picking up the signal, coughed even louder. Outside

gathering clouds hastened the darkening evening.

Broad bottomed, dimply fleshed and varicose veined, with a wad of tissue and noticeable
effort she wiped, took a breath and then flushed.
but you just cant stop them kids these days star craving mad they are getting pregnant
one after another used to be what we called falling in love its just fun for them until they go get
themselves pregnant and then what they aint ever going to be ready for that sure as not the
responsibility of a youngin and not the financial heartship none of them are really gamefully
employed missus meow meow none of them got the easy life such as you
You want a drink now? Walker asked
You getting one?
Yea.
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WALKER
Yea, sure.
Standing before the wash basin, squat, dwarfish, pushed by years to a place just above the
ground, not much more than a puddle of human substance, from which a face cankered and sore
emerged like a fungus, once raven hair now wild cheaply colored wisps betrayed at grey roots,
she set to brush out the tangles of sleep.
kids these days just get divorced when things gets tough thats what they do missus meow
meow how things sure have changed dont seem to care about the future much as if something
someone will take care of them play it by year until they finds themselves in so much trouble that
no one can bail them out this here life aint been so good but in some ways I am internally
grateful I guess my as well accept it its going to be over soon enough as it is huh missus meow
meow like poor mister jeepers out there out in the cold while you get your own heater vent while
he gets soaping wet in the rain you are as dry as a biscuit we love mister jeepers dont we but it is
a different life you got the only one you got cant say that for poor tommy johnson though
collapsed dead the other day conjunctive heart failure they said not even fifty and they say he
was as strong as an ox and there werent no reason for him to go down that way but it beckons
the question missus meow meow that when the lords time has come it is time and poor mabel
now she got them six kids still three old enough to work on their own but wont well she got them
six and that hogfarm to take care of and nobody to help her and the caterpillar place where
tommy worked says that they dont have no life insurance policy any more for their sales persons
even after he worked there for all them thirty years or so and so shes out borrowing money
begging her others for the funeral costs suppose we could help her out a little although walker
wont like that on account he and tommy never did see eye for eye on much but then who can see
eye for eye with walker or who would want to see eye for eye with him or any drunk for that
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WALKER
matter still missus meow meow I can stop at mabels on the way to the factory and drop off some
potato dish or something and maybe a hunnerd dollar bill that should help besides that will be
Walkers funeral money cuz hell if I am going to spend a dime on him when he gives up the goat
there is a hole out back with his name on it no one would come anyway except his gimpy cunt
maybe the writer will come by though he better hurry soon have to leave earlier than usual hope
he comes
Same Tommy? the writer whispered perhaps out of embarrassment.
Yep.
Who was he?
A man who thought everything had to be his own way or no way, and thats how he died,
in his own way, in pig shit that is.
Walker laughed quietly.
A flash of lightning revealed briefly how dark the evening had become.
Startled by the laugh that he saw before him, the upper lip lifted high above his teeth, his
mouth a dark maw with silver blackened back teeth, the skin around his nose pulled into tight
sinewy folds, his eyes slanted into a devilish stare while the laugh erupted in a loud horses
neigh, the writer gripped the table. Walker, thinking the writer had been frightened by the
lightening, looked outside and laughed again.
Awakened, embattled, relieved, hungry, free from the nestles of sleep, forgetful of her
lack of audience, engaged with her own reflection, she gestured towards the mirror as her voice
rose in pitch and volume.

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like father like son missus meow meow was supposed to stop at the boys house this
evening and take care of the little one and cant now on account of this new shift I gotta take and
so betty falconstaff she tells me yesterday at work that she had seen the boys truck parked at
missys one night but you can never be sure with betty ever since she got that herpes in her eye
but Ill be darned if that boy who hated his fathers guts aint going to be just like walker in every
way after all from spit to shoe polish breaks my heart it does to see him these days hes got the
looks he always had the looks and I always hoped that god gave him walkers good looks so that
the devil would have to deal with a good man with walkers looks but now he is getting him the
walker mannerisms too smoking for one probably taking to drink as well and then of course that
horse laugh that everyone hates I see that in the boy too and now of course geriann has gone to a
judge and gotten herself a cease and decease against the boy saying he threatened her or
something and so I can only imagine since I know all about what it is geriann is dealing with but
I told her none good can come from this cease and decease what about the child and she said
well it aint his anyways and I said well dont matter he sure think its his and she said it were
none of my business and then she told me that I was a battered woman and that she was in no
way going to be like me thank you very much she said and I told her that some things have
changed and then some things havent changed and marriage has not changed although people
getting divorced and kids growing up in fractured families those things have changed and if you
want to cut off your nose despite your face then so be it geriann you are a grown woman or at
least you think you is and I cant stop you and so one can see that this hell that walker has done
created just repeats itself over and over again infecting us all I suppose suppose I was to do
something with the writer I think he likes me wouldnt that be something make a cockhold out of
walker after all hes done to me why not suppose I should tell the writer walkers tale not just

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pieces of it but the whole terrible story let the writer tell it put it in his books so that there is
permanent testament to this evil so that everyone can then know
Maybe I should be going, the writer said.
Nah, Walker whispered, stay, shes just warming herself up.
Upon tiptoes, on strained calves, neck muscles pulling at the loose flesh below, her mouth
twisted as she breathed her words through vents of hatred and despair.
how do I come to know he is satan huh I come to know this in many ways but there are
instances that prove it beyond a shallow of a doubt for once we were talking about a girl at the
factory this particular girl being a bit on the wild side i might add which of course must have got
walkers mind a thinking and we were saying how she said she was having relations with this
one boy and that she had no plans to marry this here boy she was having relations with and so we
told her well many a girl has said that and she said not to worry that she was taking the right
precautions is what she called them and so we said well if god wants you to have a child he will
find a way and it may not be according to the timing of your liking and this girl she just laughed
at us and told us that she was on the pill and so she wasnt worried and walker who has said
nothing to this point in the conversation suddenly says something and he says you watch that girl
will get pregnant and when that infant pops out it will be holding all them pills in its hands and
we all laughed and it wasnt often we laughed at something walker done said and so sure enough
comes the day when the girl finds out she is pregnant and eventually she has to quit working at
the factory on account of the chemicals and whatnot and so it is months later that we finally hear
well it was time for that baby to be born and when she gave birth we found out that that baby
was born without any hands and we all immediately remember the words that walker had said to

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curse that mother and that child that is one way of many that i knows with dead certainty walker
is none other than satan
And Walker sitting content realizing that she would now accomplish all the work that he
had been struggling to do for this writer smiled a bit as he looked down while the demons in the
bathroom carried louder and the writer wriggled uncomfortably, his fat nervousness finding no
settlement with the small plastic covered chair. Approaching thunder rattled panes, plates.
Heres another drink, Walker said.
the crutch of the matter is that walker is a disease and like a leper who he touches can
then live in fear of catching that disease and so you might say do I his wife have that disease and
I say that for crimes sake look at me if I dont look like a woman with a disease then theres no
woman in the world with any disease and so theres no stopping walker while hes alive and
walking on this here earth from touching all hes going to touch like his boy like the whores he
fornicates with like the men he drinks with like the many others who like fools people are are
captivated by his looks not knowing what lurks beneath them looks this is not a pigment of my
imagination every since I comes to know walker I have come to know evil in a new way evil is
not always plain to sight it can be subtle it can be small in its shape and form like the bible says
he will be charming and we will be captivated by him but just as it can be big and terrible and
obvious and I have come to witness this and I have come to realize that there is no way that this
kind of evil can come from man alone that it must come from another from satan from the devil
himself and that is to say and I say this with no hesitation that Walker is that beast this is lucifer I
didnt need no aliens coming to visit me although I got that as evidence as well but I didnt need
no outer body experience to see this evil in this man cuz I sees it on a daily basis i sees it I hears

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WALKER
it I live and breathe it I am infected by it I carry its seed its spore and its evil power within me I
am at battle I am at war with the force of lucifer I am
The woman shrieked, then
Billowy, afloat, with slow effortlessness, sleepy faced and generally unkempt, small
shouldered and frail boned, long and loose in bosom, ghostlike, weathered, whitened by the
repetition of seasons, burgundy raven hair combed and flowing, dressed in her favorite nightie
which was opaquely flannel but spotted with stains old and new, jiggling at hip and behind, and
so shapelessly gowned, dourfaced, baretoed, and bejeweled with a sapphire pendant around her
withered neck she had walked into the kitchen to find Walker and the writer with heads down
over their whiskeys as if hiding unclean thoughts beneath silent hymns.
Then the storm erupted.

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WALKER

WINTER

Let me fill you in on what I know about the Walkers, the tall silver haired gentleman
said as we walked together along the snow covered gravel road in the last of the evening light.
I was fortunate, I suppose, to have bumped into this man, whose name was Callaway, and
bump into him is what I quite literally did. For I was taking my regular afternoon constitution,
walking with my head down looking at the ground in front of me as I sometimes do but this time
to avoid a winter blast in my face so cold that my eyes would tear up and blind me completely,
when bam! my head slammed square into the chest of this man. Rarely had I seen anyone
walking these roads, and certainly not since winter froze this desolate Midwestern tundra, so
what were the chances that I would bump into a man walking in the opposite direction as I was
on this deserted road? Perhaps he too had his head down and did not see me as I did not see him,
although the wind was not in his face as it was in mine, still in any case that we would bump into
each other on a road where for years no one other than me would be taking a walk was amazing
in and of itself.
Well, not only that, but as it turns out this man Callaway was none other than Walkers
brother in law, the brother of Walkers wife, an extremely intelligent and obviously gifted man
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WALKER
and probably the only person on this earth that Walker considered to be a friend. Well, I say on
this earth and mean that a little loosely, because as you will soon see, Callaway was already
dead. But I would not know that, of course, until later in the evening.
From an intellectual perspective, this town is at best a college town, actually it is a small
town near a college town, and so while the college has a tight knot of writers, authors, historians
and a bevy of thinkers in the sciences (as the liberal arts are only for liberals and we all know
there are few of those these days), I am not one of the more lively participants. This is not to say
that my life is without opportunity for discussion, debate, or good old quick witted bantering.
Aside from the lively situations I can create in an instant in my mind, true human interaction for
me is pretty much summed up in the two or three word interchanges I have with neighbors
(about weather of course, cats at night, and some event on the news) and the morning, noon and
nightly intercourse with my wife (of the verbal variation just to be clear).
In any case, I bring up this comment about intellectual resources in a college town
because it is exactly in such a place as this town that you come to realize, via contrast and
contraposition, that the most interesting intellectuals are indeed outside the teaching and research
circles and instead are found in much more unpredictable and unlikely places. I have always
said that a mind seeks its own level and indeed had this not been true in some sense I would
never have been more than a gas station attendant or high school janitor. Now, I must stop
myself right here as I am committing a common fallacy the very intent of which I would like to
dispel. The thesis I am about to propose is going to be that one will actually find the most
interesting intellectuals in the gas station attendants and janitors of the world, because stations in
life do not hold back the human mind, but that the mind rises to its own level regardless of
station. So perhaps what I meant is that not all gas station attendants or janitors are intrinsically
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WALKER
interesting, I am not one who marvels at the lower classes in all their tedium, but had not my
mind, all by itself, not propelled me to do otherwise, I was of a background, upbringing and
family history that would not have applauded louder had I made janitor right out of high school.
And so it was with great fascination that I met this man Callaway, a man who like me,
had grown up in a rusting, defunct, stifling, smothering, crippling small Midwestern town
without influence or encouragement, without money, means or plan, and had on his own, with
only some luck, the ability to take a knock to the head and absorb a blow to the ego, gained the
most amazing purchase on life.
Unlike me, he was not well dressed for this bitter winter weather. The sun had long since
vanished and night came like the seventh decade of life over this road, which was white and
uniform up to the broken and shattered corn stalks stabbing through the snow like reeds though
the mist covering a pond. Callaway was dressed only in a light jacket over a rather thin, albeit
woolen sweater. He had no gloves, no cap, not even boots. On his feet were slippers. He looked
as if he had just bounded from his doorway to pick up the evening paper but forgot to return.
And so when, after we exchanged our apologies (for running into each other) and
introductions (I had told him that I took this walk every day, was a professor at the university and
had made friends of the Walkers, before whose house we initially stood), Callaway said to me,
Let me join you, I have nothing better to do
I was surprised as I had intended to walk all the way up to the armament plant and back, a
good two miles or more in a bitter wind, cold night and unforgiving foot of snow, conditions that
no living man could bear for long dressed as Callaway was dressed. And that was when he said,
And let me fill you in on the Walkers.

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WALKER
But before we embark on that central topic of conversation, let me return to my point
about intellectuals in these small Midwestern towns. Callaway, it turns out, was just the perfect
example to illustrate my point. Born to a drunken gambler and a bitter but mostly competent
mother, he was raised in a town of forty six people, went to school in a one room schoolhouse
that he shared with the same eight kids for more than eight years, joined the Army, learned to
play jazz, classical and tango guitar, quit the Army to play in a quarter at the old hotels in a
nearby town, went to work at the armament plant (where we were now headed), began taking
some night classes at a community college, fell in love with philosophy, saved enough money to
go to law school, joined a small firm in this very town, impressed an attorney from Chicago
enough to be hired away, eventually became one of the top insurance attorneys in the US, along
the way developing a passion for oil painting and the theories of the Ash Can artists of the early
century Midwest and even wrote a number of monographs exploring the connections between
musical and chromatic scales. My god! You would never find such an intellectual at the
university! On top of all that, he was married to a real ball buster of a gal, a psychoanalyst and
true Rand follower who plotted out her life with amazing rationality and control. So we had a
few things in common to say the least.
I have not fully described Callaways appearance and that I must do if you are to have the
proper visual context for all that comes afterwards. First of all, Callaway was anything but an
old man, even though he was probably older than me. I would guess that he was in his mid 80s
but there was very little about him that you would call old. He stood tall and erect, his shoulders
broad and his back straight to his collar. He held his head high and although his hair was
platinum white like mine, it was perfectly cut and combed, giving him a professional, almost
regal air which matched the most striking aspect of him, his blue grey eyes. These eyes were

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eyes like you had never seen. They were bright as the moon would soon become when the
clouds broke later in our walk, icy clear, eyes that were as warm and inviting as they were cold
and penetrating. You could see that he had commanded much of his way through life with the
skillful use of these eyes, stabbing someone with a harsh glare in a courtroom or softening
someone with their presence in his gentle smile. He used his eyes in subtle ways that I noticed
right away, he would flash their greyblue radiance from a sidewards glance rather than full on
which would have been intimidating to say the least. He allowed them to water at just the right
time to let you know that he was talking through his emotions. And other times he would look
up not to acknowledge a god as he was a devout atheist but to let you know that he still held the
world in primitive wonder. It was his eyes that made his smile so charming, so disarming, it was
his eyes that brought a fearful intensity to his stare, and it was his eyes that both shone with a
transparency that gave him an aura of mystery while at the same time invited you to see farther
into him as a being than anyone would ever allow. His strong double chin, his firm but delicately
colored lips, his nose that had been broken once or twice in a life I would soon know all about,
all added to what was a man of immediate and undeniable character.
It was already dark, blustering and cold when we bumped into each other. I could not
make out all these details that I am describing, I was not yet aware of what kind of man, what
kind of extraordinary man this Callaway was. This would come with time. I accepted his offer to
walk with me to the armament plant blindly and trustingly, although I knew immediately he was
not someone who would cause me any harm. In fact, I offered him my scarf for added warmth,
but he refused. My eyes were stinging against the wind and nose running against the cold, while
he seemed to suffer no discomfort at all.

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So you know the Walkers, I said to start the conversation once we got our footsteps
aligned and had found the perfect distance between us to walk comfortable together, strangers
but instantly comrades all the same.
Indeed, he answered, in fact I came out here tonight to talk with you about them. I
dont know if you have heard, but Walker is dead.
What?
Yep, hung from a tree in the field behind his barn. Seems to be an accident though,
well seems that no man would have tried to hang himself the way he was found hung, the leather
reins around his shoulder as well as his neck, not sure anyone else would have succeeded had
they tried to commit suicide in that way, not sure what he was trying to do, but it appears it was
all an accident. The town police are not known for their forensic capabilities or Colombo
approach to such things.
When did this happen? It seems like, well I am sure I was just there having a drink with
him, when Ha! Yes. Interesting question.
Why is that interesting?
Well, you see, it will take some explaining, but the short answer is that he dies in about
one hundred pages.
What?
Well, you see he is dead, but not yet. Soon, as in yesterday, although you will probably
think it was ten years ago when this little walk of yours is finally over.
I really dont understand.
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Sorry, best I can do.
I was beginning to immediately rethink all I had just said about Callaway exhibiting no
signs of being old. But I decided to leave it at that.
My word, I said, how is his wife? Usually I stop by to see her about this time. If it
hadnt been for you I would have gone to her door and I am sure she would love to see you. The best word I can find to describe her state of
mind now is joyous. Filled with pure joy. Perhaps for only the second time in her life.
Huh. She hated him that much huh?
You are measuring her hatred for Walker from your experience of hatred between
spouses. Her hatred for Walked was something neither you nor I could ever imagine.
Poor guy.
No. Poor her. It consumed her. Really did. I watched her waste away under all that
hatred. It ate her inside out, every moment, every day, she squandered everything ruminating
constantly on her hatred of Walker. I had often wished she could find some way to deal with it,
divorce him, leave him, whatever, get on with her life. But she refused and that hatred became
her very reason for being I think. My greatest fear now is that without Walker she will have no
reason to live. This joy she is feeling is momentary, Im sure. She will need to find something to
replace the blackness of Walker in her life, not sure what that could be but to hate herself and to
wish that she herself were now dead.
You really think so?
Know so. The only thing that will keep her alive, in my opinion, will be her fear of
dying only to find herself face to face with Walker in some afterlife. Not sure what religious
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ideas she has, but I am sure she worries they might end up together for longer than she ever
imagined.
How do you know all this? Were you close with the Walkers?
You could say that. I am her brother, Walkers brother in law.
I see. The one he believed was like a brother to him.
Did he say that? Walker was a peculiar character, very peculiar alright. Showed up
here in town oh about fifty years ago. Came here from nowheres thats right, if you asked him
where he was from that was his answer: nowheres. A widow used to live in an old house where
the Walkers house now sits. She had lost her husband many years before Walker showed up.
She took him in, let him stay in the barn that is, until she died and then she gave Walker all her
land and possessions. That created quite a stir here in town as you might imagine. She had no
kin, but you see Walker wasnt seen as one of us. Now his skin was not quite dark enough, his
hair not quite black enough, his features not quite different enough for anyone to say for sure, but
everyone on some level believed he was someone other than one of us, if you know what I mean.
Not one of us as in from this world or another?
Ha! No, the idea that Walker was an alien, well, that was all her makings. People here
were more likely to talk about Walker being part Negro, part Indian, part gypsy, part communist,
even if they did not know what that meant. They believed that the blood in his veins was
different than the blood in theirs. Dirtier, darker. And so when the widow gave up her ghost and
gave all she had to Walker, well there was quite a flurry of talking going on for a really long
time. In fact, that flurry never really ended until my sister decided to marry him.
You would have thought that would have made things worse.
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You would think, wouldnt you. For she was a real beauty my sister was. My gosh.
She was so beautiful, so strong, that people literally feared her. No guy really wanted to be her
beau, for she would destroy any guy who tried to corral her. She was voted homecoming queen
and darn if they did not have a helluva time getting a king to match her. First one that was
picked suddenly told everyone that he had to leave out of town. His replacement immediately
fell and broke his neck, some say on purpose as no other bone would have sufficed as an excuse.
The last one who ended up next to her in the Homecoming parade was so nervous that he broke
out in hives and threw up several times while sitting in the car.
But the picture of her hat I have seen shows she is the only one in the car besides the
driver
Look again, look at the bottom of the picture, you can see the guys back, he is barfing
into the seat. So the point is, when she decided she was going to marry Walker, well that simply
shut everybody up from talking about Walker from then on out. And it was a sigh of relief to
many guys as well, worried that she might pick one of them instead. No one envied Walkers
plight. So Walker, in preparation for the wedding, tore down the widows house and built the
house you see there now, pretty much did it all by himself, took him close to a year but he got it
done before winter came, before their wedding which took place not in any public celebration,
instead they married in front of a magistrate and the couple vanished it seemed into the house to
spend the rest of their lives.
Were they ever happy?
Sure they were happy. I remember those first years of their lives together as the
happiest I can even remember seeing any couple. They laughed, they joked, they played and had

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fun together. I had never seen my sister so carefree, so free. She was happy for the first time in
her life and yet she really didnt want to share that with anyone but Walker.
What about him?
Let me tell you, Walker was a complex man. You were talking about intellectuals
earlier and how I was an example of how the most truly interesting intellectuals were these selfmade and self-enlightened men of these small towns who went on and became self-successful
men of the world remember saying that?
Something like that.
Well, I appreciate that, but then you come across a different breed of intellectual, a man
who had no schooling, who had no mentors, whose mind had both terrible restrictions but then
no restrictions at the same time, a man who had no words on which to fully craft his thoughts,
who had to struggle and make do with what he had, who had to carve away at concepts so much
larger than his vocabulary that he struggled and often made a hideous mess of trying to
understand things that you and I would pen with ease. We are talking about a man who is
fighting the most fierce and terrible battle that either you or I can imagine, a battle with no
weapons, with no skills, doomed to lose, doomed to failure, yet driven towards trying to succeed
again and again and again. And out of all these attempts, out of all these failures, that something
should finally emerge, not quite what we would call a body of thought, or an opus of any kind,
but that something at all should be created that had meaning, that had significance, that would
offer a lasting testament to a single minds attempt to understand the world not just in terms of
his own life but of its place in the world.

That is the most amazing and miraculous of

intellectuals. That is the most permanent and the most giving body of thought that we have,

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albeit it some twisted iron and some birdhouses. But that is what you should marvel at. And that
was Walker.
As we walked on the snow crusted gravel road, the only sound other than our voices was
the scraping of the snow beneath our feet. I listened and was reminded of the sounds of shovels
digging into the earth, spadeful after spadeful.
And yet, for these first few years of marriage, he too was a different man. These cares,
these concerns, these obsessions, all seemed to dissipate, subside. Instead here was a man who
talked and laughed and during some of our playful games in the backyard displayed a remarkable
athleticism although I never heard of him playing any sport. He demonstrated an unbelievable
gift of working with wood and metal, of being able to see what he wanted to build and build
exactly that thing. He could copy anything, such as those life-sized bears in the basement, but he
could also process his own ideas and come up with designs that were totally original such as
those birdhouses he had although the year and in his barn.
What happened? It sounds like whatever changed in them was not just the natural
course of marriage, you know the slow slide of blistering marital bliss into the tepid pools of
indifference which then further cools into total basaltic disregard at best, obsidian dislike at
worst, I call it the volcanic lava metaphor of marriage.
I wouldnt say that I ever really experienced what you described. When I first married,
I chose a woman who would never love me. Her problem, I thought, was not me, it was her selfcentered nature. This I was sure would change as we were forced to share things like toothpaste
and night tremors. But she was not just selfish, she chose selfishness as her religion, as her
science I should more correctly say. And so the passion that was at the base of our relationship
actually never really changed. She was afraid of it because she saw that passion as something
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that took from her without giving to her, yes my passion gave to her, but she wanted her passion
to give to her, and as far as she could tell it only took from her. And so moments when her
passion got the best of her, which were not infrequent, were moments that lead to utter postcoital confusion and finally her ultimate breakdown. I was a puppet in all this, I did not hold the
strings, I could only play along, and so sadly, because I did truly love her, when she decided she
could not go on, I had no way to resist. I had to let her go. My wife knew Walker and my sister
and she despised them, thought they were children they way they carried on, like kids. But we
separated long before Walker and my sister did, and my wife, a psychoanalyst if you have not
already guessed that, was long gone and had no further opinions. She married an Italian painter
who wore his passion so wildly like a child wears spaghetti on his sleeve that she fell under his
spell, perhaps that was what she was looking for all a long, someone to enwrap her in his
passion, to make her release her passion, to have everything taken from her, to disallow her to
receive anything, to be deprived, to be forced into a slavery that was counter to her psychological
being, and that was not me. Enslaved and utterly unfree, she seems as happy as can be now. But
this is not about me, we were talking about Walker.
Thats okay, I decided years ago that I was the emotional cripple and that my wife
would forever be my disgruntled nurse. That makes for an uncomfortable marriage, but it seems
to be working. Better than mutual infidelity. But back to the Walkers, what do you think
happened?
Well, that is hard to say. In some way, it is easy to say that what changed in their lives
changed when Walkers boy was born. But is that birth just a marker such as a year or a month
or was that the event that actually precipitated the change? Not sure we will ever know. Some
who were around then say that she was the one who changed, retreated back into a shell of her
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old self when that baby was born. Some have suggested it could have been post partum
depression. Others said that it was Walker who changed, took to drink they said, became an
outsider to his own house. Interesting how most people feel compelled to find one layer of
blame, one person at fault, and rarely seek explanation in the overall dynamic between two
people. I would say that it was for both of them essentially the same thing, that the first years
were an illusion, that with a baby came reality and the only way they each had to deal with
reality was through the old ways, not with the new ways, and so the new ways, the fun, the joy,
the happiness, that all vanished. And the old ways, the despair and distrust, returned. And that
poor boy, when he tumbled headfirst into the world of air, he found himself gasping the fumes of
a world filled with anger and mistrust, hurt and vengeance, trickery and betrayal, all presented to
him on sharpened sticks, dirty blades, midnight shrieks and wails, rivers of tears things none of
us ever want to know. But that is all he would ever know.
We had walked about a mile along that road, and as I promised earlier, the clouds did part
and generously allowed a sliver of the moon to shine through, illuminating a landscape that
seemed to swirl like dirty water in a sink around the small wooden structure that was an
abandoned one room schoolhouse.
There, that is where we went to school, me to the ninth grade, my sister to the fifth
grade. They then built the bigger schools in town and we graduated from there. But my best
times as a kid were here in this school, in this room with Buddy Garfield, Terrence Bloch,
Shirley Smith, Denise Cauldfield, Smitty and Doggy and Tyke who had a growth disorder, never
made it over four feet and had to walk with a cane when he was only ten. The old cast iron pot
stove in the middle of the room where we put up our lunch tins so they would be warm by noon.
The wall painted over with black were the blackboards on which we did our lessons. The globe
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that we all loved to spin and randomly catch points with our fingers and imagine that is where we
were destined to be some day, Tanzania was one that I kept trying to pick for some reason I
forget now. Mr. Kline our teacher for so many years and the Ms. Peabody who came in to
replace him, a real mean lady, quick with the switch, so mean I think they removed her after only
a year, all we know is that the next fall Miss Ondemeyer was our teacher and she was young and
as sweet as could be. Everyone loved Miss Ondemeyer.
He had pulled out a bottle of wine from somewhere, a couple plastic glasses and poured
us each some of the vintage which was as dark as coal water.
You have a lot of affection for your life here.
I do and I dont. I think of it as escaping. My classmates though, not so lucky. Buddy,
died in the war at eighteen. Terrence well he went on to be a finance man that got into the
gambling boat business, they found him bloated with river water upside down in the Mississippi
one day. Shirley Smith was blinded by a gun accident and you can find here in a wheelchair at
the nursing home not far from here, not a one of her family around to help or even visit. Denise
ended up having twelve kids and it wasnt until the last one was about six years old that she
found out her husband liked to dress up in her dresses and instead of going on business trips all
these years, he was an accountant, he was attending these crossing dressing parties all over the
country. He was found dead in a hotel room with a boa around his neck. They found his partner
that night, a state representative, and ruled it an accidental death. It was then that Denise
discovered that he had blown their entire savings on his hobby, they were penniless, she of
course had twelve kids, and would soon lose her house and everything. No one knows where she
is now. Seems shame drove her away. Smitty was the proverbial farmer who lifted his baby calf
every day until he could lift a thousand pound heifer, but I heard he died when his twelve
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hundred pound thrasher tipped over on his and he couldnt lift that. Doggy lost his fingers
working in a tire factory and then lost his mind it seems and is in a shack over across the river
somewhere. And Tyke, well he seems to be the one who made it good, with that humpback of
his, those crooked arms, flipper like hands, dwindled legs, he found Jesus or maybe you could
say he found a road paved of money called Jesus and now you can find him on TV raking in the
bucks with his TV church curing people using his deformed little body of whatever ails them. If
you know what I mean.
I think so. Good wine.
Its a French pinot noir, one of my favorites. Good on a cold night like this. I have
often thought about putting together pictures of my classmates, along with the photos of them all
later in life, the news clippings, the crime reports, the funeral elegies and make a true-to-life
picture book on these one-room school houses, not one of those quaint tomes to nostalgia you
see for sale everywhere out there.
He poured us both another tall glass of the pinot noir. I was feeling warmer as the bloody
dark wine reached down to my toes. Not having had a drink for twelve years meant that I was
melting under the first loving caresses alcohol had on the brain of a sober alcoholic. Looking
away into the vast empty space where the armament plant had once been, nothing now but
vacant land that supported nothing but some faint, ghostly memory. I wanted to put a coffee
table in the middle of that expanse, sit down and read Callaways book. What would he write
about himself? I wondered. This was not Howard Roark by the way, this was a man of greater
complexity than that.
When you escape from some place where you have been for a long time, a place that is
the world to you, your first thought is not one of exhilaration. Your first feelings are probably
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fear of what you dont know, fear of the unknown, which is what you are now facing. The next
feeling is regret, that you made a mistake, that you have determined your failure. Finally, it is
loss, you look back and wonder what you have lost, what have you changed about yourself that
you will never have again, what have you despoiled.
Like losing your virginity or becoming a drunk.
Thats right. Yet mixed in with all of that, there is still an anger, something seethes that
says had I never left, had I not escaped, I would have been much different than I am now, and
that difference would not have been good; it is an anger that is looking into the past for anything
that might have tried to hold me back, tried to change me or keep me from changing, and so I
still look at the town, at these people and still harbor some ill feelings for them. I dont think
they are stupid or lower than me, I just feel that they would have liked to have kept me here
rather than seeing me go.
You think they are jealous of your success?
Heavens no! I am hardly a poster for success. Not in their world. As far as they were
concerned I gave up on success when I left, when I went to live in the city. I not only gave up on
success I guaranteed I could never come back here and enjoy that success later. I was tainted, I
was ruined. I was not one of them anymore.
I was never one of them. I have to believe you felt the same way.
Nope, not at all. I was good at sports. I worked hard. I had my own car. I had it made
you might have said way back then. Went to the Army like all the others, came back like few
others. Still had my mind like no others. Unlike you I had to figure out why I wanted to leave,
why I wanted to be different. You were different from the get-go, I had to create that difference

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and then live with what I created. I had to fashion my reasons for what I did, I had to fill my
mind with a philosophy, I had to kindle a passion that would move me, I had to trust that
somehow I would not fail so badly I would have to come back here. I was so much one of them,
that I carried that insecurity all my life, thinking I would never truly succeed because I was one
of them.
He tossed the empty bottle with a strange disregard, and we both started walking again.
But we have both come back, havent we?
Yes and no. I never came back, would never come back, could never come back.
Yet here you are.
I am dead if you have not guessed by now.
I cant say I had truly thought about that, but now that he said it, certain things suddenly
made sense. For instance his ears were not a bit red and when he talked there was not mist from
his mouth while mine belched like a diesel engine. And when he turned in a certain way
between me and the moon I thought I could see through him. But until now I had dismissed all
that blaming the cold for freezing my retinas.
I came here to help you.
Help me? Help me how?
Listen, for you to come back, you would have had to have been one of them to begin
with. But you are no more one of them than a stranger who accidently drives the wrong way into
this town. Dont let you these afternoon trysts with my sister fool you. Dont let a sit down with
Walker over whiskey allow you to believe that you are closer them or them to accepting you.

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Not quite, not really at all. What is most different about us and them, is that they are dead and
we are alive.
But you are dead.
Well, you know what I mean. They have already died here, died a long time ago. Died
before you and I were even born. This town, this population, this community has been dead for
centuries. That is what you do not know, that is what you fail to realize. You think that you can
walk into their knick knack cluttered lives, into their family rooms of artificial plants and electric
organs, into their dining rooms of Disney paraphernalia, that you can sit down with them beneath
electric fans and battery driven clocks, you think you can commune with them and find life there,
something you can write about and receive accolades and awards for describing with such vivid
sentences, well they are fooling you. They are pulling your leg at your own expense. No sooner
than you leave than they are ripping a gut with what they pulled over on you. They are spitting
up blood they are laughing so hard because they made you believe they were alive. They are
dead, long dead.
I harbor an unhealthy and irrational level of revulsion for these people and this life as
anyone, but I would not consider them dead
I will show you.
We had come to the end of the first half of my walk, we were stopped at the gates to the
armament plant.
Inside this gate there are 19,000 acres of land that belongs to the US government.
Inside here are 420 miles of road and 103 miles of railroad tracks, there were more than forty

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buildings, and more infrastructure to support a town of one hundred thousand people, all
dedicated to one thing and one thing only.
As an armament plant I suppose that would be making bullets.
Making not just bullets but anything imaginable that can kill human beings. Mortar
shells, rockets, bombs, atomic warheads. In fact, this was the first place and the only place for a
long while to manufacture out of uranium and beryllium the atomic warheads that populated the
thousand odd silos we rammed into the countryside in preparation for nuclear war. For more than
fifty years, more than one hundred thousand people worked in this top secret manufacturing
facility, some in shelter buried thousands of feet underground, others within earthen structures
that could not been seen from the sky and that would collapse in the case of an explosion and
bury both people and technology soaking up the radiation. So they believed. And that theory was
tested, almost every year. Every year there was another explosion, the soft shudder that rattled
the entire town, the rise of earth as if the earth were coughing up something it was choking on,
the collapse of another hill created to cover up the buildings beneath, to absorb the inevitable
explosion, to soak up the radiation, so they thought. Hundreds of thousands of people worked
here handling hot radioactive materials before there were known safety precautions, before they
made studied effects of radiation on people, thousands of people exposed, thousands of women,
thousands of men who would get sick then and sicker later, sicknesses that were never reported,
deaths that were secretly covered up. Workers had company printed signs that said Tattlers are
Rattlers. At any one time there was enough uranium in this plant to poison the entire United
States ten times over, yet it was all right here in our little town. Enough people come in here and
were exposed to account for more than fifty percent of all national exposures altogether. There is

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enough radioactive dust particles and contaminated water in this soil to build a dozen atomic
bombs. This is why this town is dead. It has been dead for a long time.
I was beginning to realize why I had been brought here. So the wine told me. Who was I
if not my own version of Scrooge, my words piled around me like my pennies and dollars, my
efforts producing nothing of value to anyone, nothing I would ever share, my dark den where I
holed up away from humanity, my miserable life leading to the emptiest of deaths. This
Callaway was my version of the ghost of Christmas past and my night was not necessarily going
to end up with an epiphany or revelation that would change me into handing out signed free
copies of my novels instead of insisting my students buy them new, not on Amazon. So the wine
told me.
And yet, we continue to find ways to call the people here our national heroes. We
create and recreate historical documents to show how these people worked selflessly under the
most dangerous conditions to help protect our national security. We rally for them, we create
letter writing campaigns to help them, we besiege our senators and lawmakers to give them more
money to help them in their old age. We create days of remembrance, we create newsletters
honoring these heroes and heroines. My god, they were just starving desperate people looking
for a job. There is no better workforce than the Midwestern workforce, too proud to take hand
outs, too proud to even ask their relatives for help, they will take any job, two or three jobs, work
is the religion here, work is the measure of being. They were no better than any other farming
community which was suffering under its own yoke of poverty, their humiliation writ in smudges
upon their face ever since the great dust bowl, they were given a job, an apron, some gloves and
told to get to work. And that they did. Does that make them heroes? Does that deserve a
monument? I am hardly a bleeding heart, but why dont we build monuments for the workers in
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the Philippines, in India or China? What about the workers we used in Mexico to assemble our
car batteries now, to do the poisonous life-killing work we refuse to do now that we were a little
smarter? This here was the China of the domestic United States, this here was our Singapore,
our Taipei, our Chengdu. Cant you see that it was no different, just because they were our
people, we did not treat them any differently. So tell me, why are we building them a gazebo and
stamping their names on every brick in the floor of that peaceful place?
I had no idea, but said nothing.
Why am I so angry? Go ahead, you can ask me that. But dont bother. No reason to. I
am angry because I am one of those poor desperate Midwestern blockheads who worked here. I
am angry because I am one of those who bravely and willingly put my life in harms way. I am
one of those chinks, gooks, slanted-eyed laborers, yellow skinned slaves that wasted my life,
ruined my health! Except I am a white American. I am one of those who thought country first
and my life second. I have my name on a brick in the floor of a gazebo. Thats right, I am a
hero. A fucking hero. Wouldnt you agree?
I had no idea, but said nothing.
Life is anything but fair. It seems that for so long we are always looking in one
direction, looking ahead, to the future, hell bent on getting there, determined but that future looks
so far away, so out of reach. Then one day, it seems we have been inadvertently turned all the
way around, suddenly the scenery has changed and we are looking in the opposite direction, we
are looking to the past, looking back not at what we have accomplished but at all we never did, at
all the dreams that never came to be, at all the possibilities that never were, at all the time we
wasted regardless of how busy we thought we were. That is a sad day, dont you think?
I had an inch of an idea, but said nothing.
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That day was a tough day for me. I had worked hard for that day, I had thought of
nothing but that day and wanted nothing but that day to come. That was the day when I had
finally figured it all out. It had taken me decades to get to this point of revelation, this moment
of clarity, a moment we all hope will come. But it came to me on the same day, at the same
moment when I realized I was too old to do anything about it, that my time had passed, I had this
clarity but I had no time left to see it become something, my time has passed, I had mastered the
skills, I had accumulated the knowledge, I had gathered the wisdom of others, I had developed a
repertoire and I had the gift to create but ironically the candle had gone out, I had played the
game correctly up to a certain point, I had put myself in position but did not leave enough time to
get across the finish line. I would never be who I wanted to be. I would never do what I wanted
to do. I had a chance to be something, someone, but I plump ran out of time. I missed the train
by a few seconds. I blinked when the falling star was falling. Instead of coming too soon, I
didnt come at all. You know what I mean?
I had some idea, but said nothing.
I used to believe in ideas, the power of ideas, the ability of people to put ideas to work
to make a difference. Now, I am not sure there are even things that we can call ideas. Maybe all
there is are voices trying to be heard. All that matters is to be heard. See these scars?
Callaway pulled up his pants legs and across his shins were white stars that seemed to
reflect the moonlight.
I used to be proud of these scars, they were the marks of what I did to be a man. They are
all over me, my legs, my arms, my chest, my back. From the cinders that flew from the smelting
buckets, it rained down on us, day after day, no helmets, no suits, no men needed such things, I
took the burning embers like all the men did, like men. Proud to have these as if they were some
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tattoo. Proud to be carrying on my body a bit of the past. Less I forget. The past, the past, there
is no past, only things from the past.
What could I say, so I said nothing.
I have to go now, he said, but before I go let me leave you with one last thing. When
you have the worlds largest armament plant and the largest manufacturing facility for atomic
bombs, and the largest stores of spent and useless radioactive materials anywhere, something
happens. You know that that is?
I had no idea, but said nothing.
We call it the shit fly effect. When you have the most of something in the world, then
you are going to attract things to you just like a pile of shit in a field attracts flies. Its inevitable.
The bigger it is the more flies you will attract and the more persistent they will be. This is true in
a literal sense as well. Come here in the summer time, stand up here on this knoll and look out
over the area. You will see a galaxy of fireflies that puts the Milky Way to shame. But I am not
talking about those kinds of flies. Can you guess what these flies are that I am talking about?
I had no idea, but still said nothing.
UFOs. Thats right. The areas of the world with the highest sightings are those areas
where top secret brass has decided to store and manipulate radioactive materials. Those flies
from outer space are buzzing around here. Why am I telling you this?
I had no idea, but still said nothing.
Because you have to have all the facts to make a proper judgment. That was the one
thing that I agreed with my ex-wife about. Only with all the facts can you expect to lead yourself
out of the darkness and into the light, into enlightenment. And you, you poor guy, are seeking to
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understand the Walkers of all things. And so with that, I need to leave, I have left you all I can.
Well, except a joke. Have you heard about the farmers pig? The one with three legs? The pig
that was so great he could not possibly eat him all at once? No? Its my trademark joke. Been
so for years. Oh, and watch out for those dogs.
And with that my ghost of Xmas past was gone.

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SPRING

When do you know you are an alcoholic? How about when the first thing you do when
you wake up on the bathroom floor is brush your teeth. How about when you drink so you can
better enjoy being alone? How about when watching your diet means salting your beer instead
of ordering a burger? How about you feel safe driving because you assume everyone else is
sober? How about when you need a drink to be able to see well enough to find your glasses?
How about when you drink like a fucking fish?
Somehow it is suddenly spring. Go figure. Callaway has left me and here I am all alone
in the middle of a cornfield on a night that has now transcended both logic and season.

The

moon is out, its bright stone looking over me as if one of Callaways bluegrey eyes, I can nearly
see his entire face in the sky as if he were only inches away breathing down on me.
When do you know you are an alcoholic? Maybe when you piss yourself but then figure
people will think you just spilled your drink. How about when you live in a small town in Iowa,

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work as a philosophy professor, have a wife who makes all the money, and you are short fat and
old. How about when you forget to spit out the Listerine. How about when parents pull their
kids out of your path shouting, Watch out for the drunk!
One thing is, once you know someone is an alcoholic, well, from that point on you cant
accept anything they say as meaningful, poetic or least of all true. The mind of an alcoholic is a
wormholed mess of lies and deceits, with no way out. And let one try to impress you with a
philosophical statement about life, a poignant observation or even a subtle turn of phrase, unless
you are totally naive, you cant give any weight to those words whatsoever.
When do you know you are an alcoholic? How about when dogs pee on you and you
swear youll piss on them some day? How about when you see a train coming and ask: is that a
train coming? How about when you go to a strip bar and you budget lap dances but not your
drinks? How about when your blood alcohol level sounds suspiciously like your IQ? How about
when you come home without underpants, two golf balls in your pocket and an unused flare in
the front seat of your car (and you dont play golf). How about when to avoid being caught with
an opened bottle of vodka in your car you guzzle whats left. Someone says the word Jesus and
you instinctively answer yes, no ice. When you barf in someones living room you being
counting many drinks you will need to get back to where you were. How about when your hands
are shaking and snot is pouring from your nose? How about when your two year old grandson
punches you in the liver and hurts his hand so badly he cries?
A lot of famous writers were drunks. Used to be you had to be a drunk to be taken
seriously as a writer. Everyone knows the stories of Chandler, Cheever and Hemingway,
Fitzgerald and Faulkner, Lowry and London. Our greatest minds were lushes basically. Well,
except I cant imagine that Einstein drank. But writers hold court when it comes to that
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endearing trait of drunken self destruction. And we admire that. Look at the special bookshelves
we give to the Bukowskis, Millers and Hunter Thompsons of the literary world. And the truly
great ones, apparently, could pen a masterpiece while drunk. Me, I am a drunk, but I have never
put letter to paper while drinking, well not until this chapter. My mind, the way I have come to
know it, just did not have the capacity or capability to be profound, poetic, and meaningful and
intoxicated at the same time. I struggled while sober word by word. Nothing flows from this
brain while awash in booze.
How do you know you are an alcoholic?

How about when diarrhea seems like a

reasonable pastime? How about when you measure what you can drink tonight as how much you
drank last night plus one or two? How about when your pet dies and you dont remember having
a pet? How about when all your Internet friends complain that you are slurring your type? How
about you are Irish and drunk all the time?

How about when your mascara is running but

tonight it is between your thighs? How about when you take vitamins with your whiskey and
add ice to properly hydrate? How about when you wake up and find a wine cork in your ass?
How about when the woman you wake up with is really a short, middle aged man with only one
arm and a hairy hernia the size of a watermelon? About when your kids ask you to leave and
come back with their real daddy? How about when you feel the urge to punch the waitress
because she is too slow bringing you your first beer? Or when you tell yourself its okay to drink,
its the weekend, but it is still only Tuesday?
The troubled artist. I doubt most of us are troubled because we are artists, but because
we are broke all the time, or consumed by the fact that we arent doing anything meaningful.
When do you know you are an alcoholic? How about when you decide that anyone who
doesnt drink cant be trusted? Or when you decide it is okay to drink today because you
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know (wink wink) you wont drink tomorrow. When the boozeometer on your car registers
alcoholic. When you walk into the wrong house but dont realize it until you scream who took
my bottle of scotch! and the stranger who lives there calls 911. How about when your doctor
gives you two years to live unless you quit drinking, which will kill you immediately? How
about when you leave your door unlocked so that there is no problem when you lose your keys?
Or when you ask yourself if that was your fifth or sixth ah who cares.
But truth be told, I was not thinking about much of any of this as I have a pack of hungry
wild dogs chasing me through the cornfields. You dear reader knew these dogs were coming,
right? You had to know that eventually there would be some meeting between me and these
wild, hungry, blood thirsty hounds, the clue has only been dropped a half a dozen times so far.
Well, now you are getting what you should have expected. The question is will they now get me.
So picture this: me, this fat old guy in his 80s, running for his life in the thick of night through a
muddy cornfield, drunk for the first time in twelve years, my fat little legs dancing over the ruts
and broken stalks, my chubby arms pumping wildly, my dangling jowls dangling, my cheeks
puffing, my little mouth gasping for air, my white hair flapping around like a mop in the wind,
my belly leaping about as if I had a bunch of fat, which I do, underneath my coat taking me this
way and that. My god, when was the last time I shuffled quickly let alone tried to gallop like this
through a muddy field? But this terrible scene gets even worse. Wait till I fall down, like now,
wham! Ho! That was a good one, face first, like a drunk falling over a curb, face to the dirt, or
horse pie, or who cares, I am about to be torn limb from limb. At this moment I seem to
remember a TV documentary on dogs in the wild, or maybe it was hyenas, how they often do not
kill their prey, but allow it to live for hours sometimes days as they eat away at the limbs and

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intestines. I see the news story headline now: Old man found alive, half devoured by wild dogs.
Subheadline: Too good to eat all at once.
And why is it Spring? Just for symmetry? Symmetry is Walkers thing not mine. I have
no control over my body and no control over the narrative. That is what drinking does to you, it
reveals to you what you refuse to admit when you are sober, that you have no control. But I have
to get up. I can hear the four legged beasts racing across the muddy earth behind me. Delirious
they are to get to that juicy, well-aged morsel that I am. Why do we always say that human
beings taste bad? Experts tell us that a shark will bite off a swimmers leg then spit it out because
they dont like the taste of surfer meat. Tigers have to be extremely hungry to eat a man, as they
cant stand the taste. Bears have to be sick or crazed. Men stuck in a cave wont eat their friend
because they have been told human meat does not taste like chicken. My wife wont do certain
things anymore, because well she cant stand the taste.
Being a drunk, I know there is only one thing that can save me: being drunk. Thats right.
Drunks never die in car crashes even though they kill off all eleven passengers in the other car.
They say that is because the drunk never saw it coming, so we are relaxed and can take the glass
shattering and steel bending blows in such a carefree way that we are not injured. What if a
drunk falls off a ten story building, will he know it then, will he hit the ground in a relaxed way?
Get up and dust himself off, wonder in that endearing way, now which way do I go?
I am glad this section is all about inebriation, forget the self-indulgent structures, the
metaphors, the literary gems that impress no one anyway. When you are drunk you can just be
yourself. That is what drunks think.
We used to like drunks more than we do now. Remember Red Skelton, his drunkard
character, I loved him so much I wanted to be him and when I did my Red Skelton imitation my
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parents laughed until they choked and started crying. And then there was those other comedians,
Foster Brooks, Hal Smith, and Otis Campbell. Those were my favorites as a kid. I wonder why.
My mother and father were drunks but they werent funny at all. I hated it when they were
drunk, but sad to say I hated them worse when they were sober. They were mean sobers. And
they were boring drunks. My dad would get agitated once and while to make things interesting,
my mother might get sick and puke on the porch or slip and fall in the kitchen with an Oops!
followed by an Im sorry! as if she had accidently farted at the dinner table. But for the most
part they would start drinking around 4 pm and be nearly incoherent by dinner time and passed
out in various supine positions by eight. I was left alone to listen to the radio, watch TV and
make up my own stories about parents who said please and thank you, used their napkins when
they ate dinner and laughed at things I did because I was clever not because I was a fool.
Incidentally and divergently, yet so so apropos, I had a friend read an earlier draft of this
and she told me she was totally offended by my total lack of regard for women in this piece of
work. She went on to say that this was a terrible piece of writing and that no one would publish
it. Not finished with that, she told me that my admiration of the high-minded modernists had left
me with the same undeveloped approach toward women and that I should try to read something
from the 21st century where men writers were trying to make up for the lack of awareness in my
mentors. She ended by saying that I wrote only for myself and that I was better than that.
Now in my defense, if I ever strived for anything it was to be better than myself. This
same woman later wrote to me apologizing profusely that she had written all that scathing
criticism when she had been drinking and had, as she said, been out of her mind. Nonetheless, I
think that she, like most drunks, carried a kernel of truth in what she said. And so I am

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determined to join the 21st century and write with proper feeling and perspective about women. I
must. I will. And if I dont at least I tried. Honestly.
From a literary standpoint, I stand nowheres as Walker would say (his words were not
random), but from a narrative standpoint, I do know where I stand at this point. I am firmly
between some wild dogs (amazing how they can be so near and yet so far) and an even unlikelier
destination. You are not going to like how this all ends, but you will be glad when it does. That
is my version of a happy ending. When you are a kid of alcoholic parents, you are simply glad
when it is over. Nothing happy about what happened, just happiness that it is no longer
happening. I have had many, many happy endings. I used to sing Happy Ending to you. Happy
ending to you cha cha cha. Happy ending dear (Mortimer, Crandall, Bellingwick, Torment or
whatever the name of my pet was at the time, they all died so quick) Happy ending to youuuuuu!
And no! I did not then bring about some ceremonious end to my dear pets life. I was abused but
I never made it to the stage of acting out with puppets, pets or even women. I love women, even
when they are drunk and call me 20th century.
And so these dogs, these ferocious, man eating dogs, Old Altschulers bloody beasts,
these symbols of the forsaken homeland, the lost innocence, the metaphorical images of what
happens when you forsake your own innocence, when you disregard your past, your heritage,
these jaw snapping, yapping, terrible dogs had to be closer than ever for I was still slip sliding
through the mud and muck, tripping and falling, tripping and falling, beginning to think of
myself as one of those bouncing balls that plays over the notes of the song in those old TV
cartoons, but this has to end for a number of reasons first of which the reader cant be expected
to continue imagining an out of shape eighty year old fat man running and bounding along like
this, nor can you really imagine such a blimp escaping these dogs, nor can you really imagine the
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narrator and the writer and the creator of this blankety-blank tome in which you have invested an
incredible amount of time simply being eating by some forsaken household pets. The idea of
writing about myself being eaten alive intrigues me to some extent, but I already had a
destination in mind when I outlined this fucking book years ago and this whole scene with
Callaway and the armament plant and these dogs just kind of crept in here. I usually dont drink
when I write unlike so many of my colleagues, but I have to admit I let a few drinks influence
me here and so now you and I both are dealing with the aftermath of that. Wait dont shut the
book. I am mustering up a sober transition.
Speaking of mud, so many have said that going sober is like entering a new Spring in
ones life. Ok, fuck. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you are a drunk going sober
it is as much like Spring as Schoenberg is to Mozart. No, worse than that. I dont want to say it
is like death, because getting totally shitfaced, puking, gasping, dying drunk is like death. No
going sober is like being resurrected into your death, it is like living your death a few times over
and again. No, going sober sucks and it aint at all like Spring. First of all, you mind is as fertile
as a lump of shit. It can grow maggots but not much else. Your nerves have been unsheathed
and so they are pulsing up and down your arms and legs like hot naked wires. You are as weak
as an infant. Your nose is running, your eyes are rimmed with blood, you gasp, you cough, you
piss yourself, great globs of ugly stuff appears on the front of your shirt, you can peel other
mysterious substances off the back of your pants, the tinitinitis that you never knew you had
reappears, your eyeballs shake, your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, you puke and you
havent even drank anything, and when you arent puking you got the runs, people wonder how
you are alive. If you want to generously call these neural impulses you have thoughts, they are
only about one thing, drinking. Dreams are of glasses of beer and pouring whiskey over crystal

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clear ice. All you see are advertisements for booze. You dont recognize any store or restaurant
unless it has a Budweiser sign or people sitting inside with goblets of wine. The world outside is
but a den of bars and nightclubs and lounges. Life aint beginning, this aint Spring. Life is
over, it should be over, you want it over. Sobriety sucks. And everywhere you go they are
inviting you in, your sniveling, peesoaked, sorry assed piece of shit, they are the only ones who
want you, the only ones who care about you, the only ones who understand you.
Anyway, I am drunk not sober so suppose I am laying there in the mud and the dogs
finally reach me. But like all scenes of this type they dont pounce immediately, they stand a few
feet back, snarling and growling, staring at me eye to eye, as if savoring the moment before they
grip this putty flesh in their fangs and drag my respective limbs to the far corners of these fields.
So we are facing each other for several tense moments, then one dog lowers its head as it about
to finally pounce when suddenly there is a gunshot overhead. The dogs look up in panic at
something behind me, they close their mouths on their drooling tongues, cower, turn and flee
whimpering and still hungry. I manage to get up and look behind me and who do I see, why
none other than Mrs. Walker in her flannel nightgown, her shot gun still smoking from its pipes.
Do shotguns have pipes? I just made that up and sorry I am not going to research it any
further. That line stays. I dont have a publisher by the way, or an editor who would strip out
that line and all this other nonsense with it. All the real publishers and editors have died or gone
on to real estate by the way, one way or another they are all gone now. That is another thing my
drunk lady critic disagreed with me about. She said if there were no more publishers there would
be no more books. I didnt even argue with her. This is the self publishing age now. Everything
gets published. And that means nothing gets published. All publishers were drunks too by the
way. That was a well known fact. Not sure why them and not some other profession. I would
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think that garbage men would be drunk but I bet you find them to be one of the more sober
professionals. Bakers dont seem to be drunkards, but I bet they are. Wine mostly. As for car
mechanics, it is hard not to drink when all you can do to relax is drink. We know clergy are
drunks. Bankers are more into drugs I think. Bus drivers should drink. How about the lady who
takes the toll all day long on the Burlington bridge. Doctors, tax accountants, and anything other
profession now dominated by the Indians and Pakistanis are sobering up their image thanks to
the darker faces populated them. Is it just us white, fat, bloated Americans who are the real
drunks? The Germans drink more beer than we do yet we do not thing of them as drunks.
French more wine, but they seem sober. Russians, no, they are true drunks. I would like to say
the Japanese and Chinese are drunks for the way they seem to carry on after work, but I have to
reserve my judgment on the slanty eyed of the species. Not many in this neck of the woods.
Anyway, I am still stuck in the mud. No, the Mrs. Walker thing does not work quite right
and in a few pages you will see why. So what else is going to save me from the jaws of
mutilation and death? An army helicopter swooping down and with its chopper gale blowing the
mangy beasts away? How about a UFO? That would fit in with one of the trailing themes I have
so woven like accidental bits of lint and rubbish into this bacchanalic tapestry. But no, that
would not be me. Ah ha! How about a sweet little bunny which appears just at the precise
moment the dogs are about to pounce on me. Flash between the cute innocent little eyes, a blade
of grass being nibbled, the nose twitching but still unaware of the danger. Flash to the hungry
satanic faces of the burly mange coated dogs, the drooling mouths, the ready teeth, when
suddenly the eyes look up in another direction, widen, snouts sniff. Flash back and forth to
bunny eyes, to devil dogs fangs, to bunny nose, to evil canine squint. The dogs see the cute little

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creature, take chase and quickly and jump on it, ripping it fur from limb. Why? Because I
would have tasted bad anyway. There.
One way or another I am left alone to stumble directionless through the cornfield, unable
to see anything in front of me, to the left or right of me or behind me. A dense fog has settled in
which I vainly try to swat out of my way. Now I know what is going to happen next, but my
character, does he know? He is me after all, so this creates a bit of a dilemma. Some writers
have remarked how they do not know what sentence will come next from their pens or
computers. I am no determinist, but I find that concept a little hard to swallow. It just doesnt
taste right to me. A good chess player knows moves way in advance. A tennis player is always
one or two match points ahead. But maybe writers are different and I am not all writers.
Stephen King say he does not remember writing Kudo, he was so loaded. Is that the same thing?
I still have my doubts. Did Faulkner know what he was going to write in advance? Sure there
are times when enthused and intoxicated with the process, when deep in the fourth or fifth hour
of continuous writing, something automatic takes over and words flow from new and unknown
crevices in the brain, images appear, metaphors take flight, music is created, and often a mess
results that is thrown out the next day. Did I know ahead of time that I was going to write that
last sentence? I dont think so. I know, I am such a hypocrite.
In this case though I do know what is going to happen next and I am determined to get
there. And so without further ado, I walk into a fence. Finally. Thank god. Back to Stephen
King for a moment, I have to say that with a little time, I can reread almost anything that I have
written and not remember having written it.

Before you blame that on old age, I have

experienced this literary amnesia for more than fifty years. Which is why once I stop revising
my writing, it will quickly harden like a two day old bagel. I would not know how to. I am not
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saying I become happy with what I have written, I am simply saying that I can no longer relate to
it, its form, content, intention, goals are all lost to me. I feel sorry for you if you feel compelled
to find these things for yourself.
So I stumble right into a wooden fence, catching myself in the gut and creating a bruise
that would show up like a green belt just beneath my saggy tits. There is a wire running a few
inches above the top board, continuing I assume along the entire fence line, an electric shock
which I immediately need to test by taking off my glove and first flicking the wire with my
finger, and feeling nothing, touching it with my finger and then grasping it full in my palm. No
juice. I could follow the fence but I thought that could take me deeper yet into this wilderness,
that I would do best by climbing over the fence and continuing in my straight line path. Now we
dont walk in straight lines when we walk in places like deserts or forests or fog shrouded
cornfields. That has to do with errors that take place in our brains navigation system, errors that
force us to twaddle in this direction and then that, all the while allow us to believe we are
churning straight ahead. It is an error mechanism that some call adaptive, that somewhere along
our evolutionary history it better suited us to wander in circles rather than continually move in a
straight line. Something about allowing us to eventually come how to our little hut in the
savannah again. I have not figured that all out yet, if others have, but it is not lost on me at the
moment either. In any case, it bolstered my decision since I submit to the concept that no matter
what I decide my brain with its erring ways will screw things up anyway. I am a teacher by the
way, and so I like the idea of adding in these little educational tidbits, nothing on a Melvillian
scale of course, just little snippets of either fact or intriguing speculation. Literature should teach
us something, I believe. And if it cant teach us something, then it should at least make us think
about things. And if it cant make us think, then at least it can entertain us for a while. And if it

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fails that criterion as well, well, then you have the books written by my fellow professors in the
MFA department here.
The ground on the other side of the fence is texturally quite different than the cornfields
and I take this as a good sign. It is choppier, gooier, little if any vegetation and I sink in to my
ankles.
By the way, or as an aside, I should say, I wonder if anyone has tried to rewrite Moby
from the Dicks standpoint, the whale of course. And do so in a way that the whale with that
giant brain of his lays out all he knows about men and sailors and boats and stuff. How
interesting it would be to flip the moral spectacles, shift religions to that of the sea creature and
pin man into a glass collectors box. And of course we could then find out how man really tastes.
Where am I going? you ask. I am traipsing through mud, soft sticky mud that is trying to
suck off my boots with every step, no longer am I walking above the firm and fragrant topsoil
that feeds our bellies, no, I am clearly now amidst the dung of prolific dung producing beats,
cloven animals, ungulates who padded this patch of land with their curdling cud and grassy shit.
Thinking of Melville helps take my mind off the fact that I am sinking past my ankles in shit.
Has anyone ever seen a whale shit in the ocean. What would that look like? It could be the size
of the horse or cow that laid this lumpy field. When will this old farts heart give out is probably
what you are thinking.
Well not soon enough. There it is, the side of a building finally appears, a windowless
structure can now be seen through the fog, not far but still several steps away. As I get closer I
do see that a large opening is in front of me, a sliding door that has been pulled aside and left
open, a lightless interior beyond that. Where are the cows? I am wondering. I have seen those
young bulls and I would be a lousy rodeo clown right now if one chose to play some games with
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me. If some bull should appear I would not have a clue how to get myself out of that one and so
I am going to omit the presence of any such beast and allow myself to get to that barn and walk
inside if that is okay with you. Something will happen in there to make it worth this muddy
excursion, I promise.
No, I am not giving anything away. You will be surprised at what happens. I think you
will enjoy it all the more since I gave you a heads up actually, because now you can relax. You
dont have to squirm while you read, worrying about me in this boot sucking mud, anxious that
at any moment a terrifying beast of immense size will come out of the fog only inches from my
face, trampling me into the muck, dancing on my legs and back and face with its shit clotted
hooves. Lets get beyond that and move on to more realistic things.
I recently watched a documentary by Werner Herzog about a young boy who was born
with Downs syndrome and who was unfortunately deaf and blind as well. Watching the boy
grapple with a world he could neither see nor hear, with no way to communicate with anyone but
himself, told me something for the first time I already largely knew. One thing we all do as
humans that is central to our being is we are constantly entering into the minds of others. The
greatest fallacy that I know of is that we are a mind to ourselves, that we are solipsistic and
solitary behind this cranial bone, that there is a demarcation philosophical, metaphysical and
ontological between me and you. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are who we are
because we can flit in and out of each other brains, because we can and do imagine what it is like
to be another, because we are constantly shaping ourselves by what we think others think, and
what others see and think about us. No complex theorizing is needed to explain this, it is
intuitive and proven out every minute of every day. We constantly wonder what someone is
thinking, that is how we get through the day. We may not know exactly what someone is
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thinking, but nine times out of ten we can guess what they are thinking. And nine out ten is not
bad for a brain that fucks up all the time. In other words, we may be surprised when someone
says or does something we dont expect, but that does not stop us from guessing correctly most
of the time. In fact I think we are most often surprised at ourselves, at the thoughts we have, the
prejudices that pop into our minds and accidently spill off our lips, the sudden fits of rage, the
tears for reasons we dont know. There would be little sense writing or the arts in general in my
opinion if we could always predict what we would put to paper, make out of color, find on film,
or carve from stone. We are more a mystery to ourselves than others are a mystery to us. I know
you better than I know me. And I have never met you.
I stood at the open door to the barn for a few long moments, listening for an animal to
stir, hoof the mud, breathe or otherwise acknowledge my presence. Nothing but that eerie sound
that silence makes, that far away hum that must be in our heads, that men have long confused
with the music of the spheres or the sighs of an ever expanding galaxy.
One of the most important features of being human is our stupidity. Now one of the most
intelligent women I know, aside from my wife of course, is Anital Rondell, who wrote a book on
Stupidity and did a great job I think in making me feel stupid as I tried to read it. (Notice my
effort to be more 21st century.) Which may have been her point. My take on stupidity is that it is
part and parcel of what makes us human. I dont make up new words in order to place my stamp
on the English vocabulary, I come up with new words because I stupidly spell something wrong
or think something is a word and it is not. I am old remember, I dont have the patience to spellcheck or google every suspicious looking thing that I come up with. And if I had an editor or a
publisher these things might not happen so often. But stupidity as a human trait is part of a
parcel of things which includes a brain that makes mistakes all the time, the torn and tattered
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social fabric that we all share to varying degrees of fitness, the inability we each have to truly
reach back and understand the past, the similar inabilities to predict and understand what leads to
events in the future. We are stupid, lets face it. Were stupid, embrace it. Out of stupidity
comes all that we both admire about being human and what we detest most about being human.
Out of stupidity comes relativity theory (yes even Einstein was stupid) and Nazism. Out of
stupidity comes beautiful poetry and country music.

Out of stupidity comes Frank Lloyd

Wrights creations and Los Angeles donut stands.

I did not want to be stupid and walk into something that would kill me just because I
could not see it in the dark. So I waited a little longer, poking only my head inside the stable,
hoping that my eyes would acclimate and I could see what I would be walking into. There
seemed little hope that my aged retinas had any more life in them than my low riding testicles
and so I began to slowly creep along the wall, feeling my way with a cautious hand and a not so
steady shoulder. I felt my way with my feet , extending my toe out before bringing it down
softly without any weight, making sure that I wasnt walking over a hole or onto some
mechanical device that would clamp me up and hold me in this mud until the rats and worms had
had their fill. There were some opening ahead through which a lesser darkness appeared, and by
measuring myself with that opening, I could believe that there was nothing large in front of me,
that my way to the other side of the stable was free and clear. Of course, I then discovered
otherwise and tripped on what turned out to be a pitchfork, the proverbial pitch fork with the
handle that comes flying up into your face, breaking your nose. A bit bloodied, I laughed at my
luck, at my ability to sustain stereotypes and kept moving.

I had come to a point where it

seemed as if the large less dark opening was right in front of me, but when I reached out my hand
I touched nothing but air. I crept further and banged my shins on a wooden protrusion near the

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floor, bent over to run by my injury and feel what I had struck, determining that they were
wooden feeding troughs, probably for hay. I felt along the bottom of the troughs and came into
contract with some plastic buckets, oat and water feeders that were stacked up against the wall. I
leaned forward now and indeed was able to finger the wood that formed the bottom edge of the
less dark squares I had been pursuing. I still could not see a thing and the lesser darkness of the
opening now ruined any chance that my eyes would acclimate and let me see into the areas of
complete darkness where I stood. And so I slowly and gingerly shuffled my feet and waved my
hands as I searched for a door that I know had to be there.
I have often thought about what it must be like to be blind. But aside from determining
that it must be a bloody annoyance, I have not ever in all my years given it much sympathetic
thought. I could have done so here and so added some reflective commentary, but I was far too
preoccupied with finding my way out of this shit stinking stable that I simply wanted to find the
door. In fact the static of silence that filled my head was being challenged with other rustling
sounds coming from behind and above me. I thought of bats, bobcats, blacksnakes what else
might drop down on ones head in the darkness such as this? I had had enough of wild animals
for one night.
Finally, I found the door, it swung open rather easily with only a little pressure and indeed
the light inside the next room was much improved. I could see geometrical shapes, signs of an
organized human habitat. To my despair though, I quickly discovered that the floor of this next
room was completely cluttered with a whole host of objects large and small. I lost my balance
and fell into an iron structure that collapsed and with that leather saddles and blankets fell down
upon me. Although I didnt feel it, dust must have fallen too, getting into my eyes and nearly
filling my mouth. Getting back up, I grasped the edge of table with first one and then both
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hands and luck upon luck discovered an unseeable but impressive array of tools. Somewhere I
hoped there would be a flashlight. I did come upon a cardboard box which when I shook it had
the recognizable sound of wooden matches. Two to be exact (how can our ears hear two
matchsticks? Our organs are amazing!). I anchored myself rump first against the bench, held the
box carefully in my hands over my belly in order to catch anything that might fall, took off my
gloves, stuffed them in my pockets, then opened the box ever so slightly so as to feel which way
the inner box was oriented so that the matches would not fall to the ground. I felt the opening,
the box was right side up. I opened it, felt inside, touched the wooden sticks and with hands that
were shaking from the cold and excitement I picked one up and then closed the box again. I
turned the box in my hand and felt for patch of sandpaper striker, positioned the match in my
other hand and gave it a swift pull. Too swift -- the match head ignited but not before snapping
off the stick and flying like small fireworks onto the floor several feet from where I stood. I
gasped at the clumsy loss of exactly half of my ignition supply, but for a moment saw where I
stood: I was in a tack room and except for where I had toppled an iron saddle rack and several
saddles the room was extremely well organized, filled to every corner, but neatly and tidily done.
The flame quickly went out though and I was back in an even deeper darkness. I decided that
instead of lighting my last match I would continue to feel for a flashlight. I groped along the
bench feeling all kinds of contraptions and devices, jars, cans, spray cans, what felt to be
wrenches, hammers, chisels. And I did in fact come upon the hard plastic case of what was
undoubtedly a flashlight. I felt up and down the cylinder, ran my fingers across the round glass
face, found the switch and without ceremony pushed it up two clicks. Nothing happened. I tried
this several times with no better results, smacked the head of the flashlight in my palm for some
reason, it seemed like something I had seen someone do before. But no illumination was to be

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had. I unscrewed the bottom of the flashlight and at the last turn the inner spring forced the cap
off and out of my hands and two large batteries slid into my palm. I realized that all was lost
with this flashlight now and set the pieces on the counter. My hand was wet and I wiped them
off on my pants. I decided I wasnt sure what I was doing in this barn to begin with, that if there
was a barn there was a road up to the barn, and if there was a road up to the barn, that same road
went away from the barn, a road that would take me back somewhere and that was where I had
best be headed. Of course right at that moment I would hit my head on something, a metal
object that began swinging striking me again before I could wave around in the darkness and
catch it. It was a kerosene lantern. And by the weight of it, as I took it off its hook, it had fuel.
I cleared a spot on the counter and set the lantern down. I couldnt remember the last
time I had lit a kerosene lantern. I knew there was a wick inside the glass and that the wick had
to be partially sitting in the kerosene and had to be extended far enough in the air to catch fire
and burn, I lifted the glass cylinder then felt for and found the wick, it was short and did not
seem sufficient for flame, just a nub. With my other hand I felt around the base of the round
metal part that held the wick and amazed myself to find a tiny wheel with spiked edges just as I
had imagined. The things we remember! The bits and pieces of minutiae that we keep in our
brain only to pull them back out again decades later. I was convinced that every memory of
everything that I had seen, heard, touched, felt, thought about was tucked away in there. That
was an astounding thought and I began to wonder what would be illuminated in my mind when
the lantern was finally lighted.
I carefully turned the wheel in one direction, away from me, and felt the nub vanish
beneath the metal slot. I turned the wheel the other way and felt the nub reappear and rise up out

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of the slot. And indeed the wick felt wet and I could in fact smell the kerosene on my fingers.
This was worth the last match.
I took the box of match that I had been holding under my armpit and shook it gently just
to prove to myself that I had not done something stupid (which is okay by the way!) . I repeated
my procedure for opening the box to make sure the last match would not fall to the dark ground,
grabbed the sole survivor and closed the box back up. I felt for the striking surface and this time
pulled the match head gently, almost too gently as the match began to spark so feebly I thought
was about to die when suddenly it erupted into a huge blue flame. I looked to the lantern and
brought the match quickly to the wick which to my joy and amazement caught flame
immediately. I was about to shake out the match and then thought why do that. I used its
remaining few moments of light to take a quick look around the room, but was disappointed in
how little was illuminated unlike the first time and what I could see appeared blurred as if I were
on a merry go round. The match flame bit into my thumb and finger and I shook it off letting it
disappear into the darkness. But my lantern was alive and well. I put the glass back in place and
the flame grew brighter due to some physics principle I could not remember and suddenly my
world that had existed only inches in front of my face now extended for what could have been
miles in every direction. And the view was amazing. I looked across the bench and recognized
some of the many tools that were organized by size and utility: leather punches, tins of saddle
soap, three pronged cleaning hooks, ointments; hung on hooks and nails were brushes , pulling
combs, hooks and cutters, clippers, hoof picks, squeegee, shears and shedding blade, sweat
scrapers. My wife had been a equestrian and in our younger days when I took notice of
everything, I followed her and studied her world and now here it was revealed for me once again,
a special room of those memories. On one wall wrought iron hooks and nails held a variety of

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tack: surcingles and cavesons, nosebands and head setters, harnesses and overchecks, whips and
lungelines. On a peg broad were an assortment of bits, kimberwickes, and hackamores all
arranged like a display of tortuous metal devices. A collection of weymouths were hung on brads
like metal cocoons, but when you opened them they revealed their inlaid patterns ivory or
decorated sliver, as beautiful and sensual as butterfly wings. Then again there was the wrought
iron saddle rack and the pile of leather saddles that I had knocked and pulled to the ground along
with blankets and a tangle of leather girths, stirrups, breast plates and martingales, halters and
bridles.
The room was filled with things but again an order to the arrangement of these things was
apparent. Even along the floor there were piles of plastic feeders, buckets, a travel chest and
some coolers. The cans of ointment and sprays for the horses were neatly arranged. Nothing
was out of order, even though the items had set here for a long time judging by the thickness of
the cobwebs that fell in clumps upon them, the size of wasps nests made of paper and mud
daubers along the wall. Rat and mouse turds were sprinkled across the floor and counters. Dead
bodies of flies and beetles, iridescent June bugs and moths were sprinkled about like potpourri.
A door at the far end appeared to lead to another room. I looked down at my pants as I could feel
an itching and now a burning sensation on my thighs and saw that the battery acid that I had
gathered from the flashlight had eaten through my pants exposing my boxers and where skin
showed through were significant welts.
The door was jammed shut and so I set the lantern down first on the floor then realized I
could not see very well what I was going to do, picked up the lantern and placed it on a table
where the light shined directly across the door with no shadow from me blocking the light. I
turned the knob again and put my shoulder gently into the door. The door was made of veneer
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and so it bowed slightly under the weight of my shoulder, but the door itself seemed nailed shut.
And when I picked up the lantern and held it up to the jambs, I could indeed see the nails heads
all along the jambs, someone had nailed this door permanently shut from this side of the room. I
went back to the work bench and found a hoof pick that seemed long and sturdy enough and
using this as a pry bar I was able to at least tear the edge of the door away from the jambs and the
nails, finally getting it to the point where a hard nudge again with my shoulder sent the door
flying open on its hinges into the other room with a loud crack that resonated painful in my ears
for a few moments. I picked up the lantern and walked into the other room.
What struck me first was the sheer number. Hung from hooks in the ceiling, strung on
wooden pegs along the walls, set into shelves and cabinets, stacked on table tops and benches
were dozens of the most unusual and exquisite birdhouses I had ever seen. Each one was
different in shape, form, construction and color. Some were long and had multiple holes and
were obvious designed for birds that lived communally. Others were small individual houses but
not like you would expect to see in a catalogue or a tourist shop. These were constructed in a
way that was far more organic, they were not square but octagonal at times, cylindrical with
others. Others were made from boxes glued or nailed to other boxes almost in a honey comb
effect. The variety in design seemed endless, and as I walked through the room the hanging
birdhouses cast shadows from the light that moved as I moved making it seem that the houses
were rocking back and forth, as if there were bells or chimes, although not a single one was
moving. It was then that I noticed that on each one was written the name of a bird, the bird
house maker had created a certain bird house for a Killdeer, another for an American Woodcock,
one for the Mourning Dove, another for the Black billed cuckoo, the Whip poor will, the Red
bellied woodpecker, Brown headed Cowbird, Northern Flicker, Easter Phoebe, Red eyed Vireo,

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Bluejay, Blackcapped Chickadee, Indigo Bunting, Kentucky Warbler, Ruby throated Humming
Bird, Tufted Titmouse, Bluegray Gnatcatcher, one for the Tennessee Warbler and a different one
for the Yellow rumped Warbler, large long units for Tree Swallow, round ones for the Barn
Swallow, others for the White breasted Nuthatch, the House Wren, the Eastern Bluebird,
American Robin, Gray Catbird, Cedar Waxwing, American redstart, Ovenbird, Eastern Towhee,
Song Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Rose breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Bobolink, Red
winged Blackbird, Baltimore Oriole, the American Goldfinch.
Amidst and behind these hanging collections of birdhouses were even greater and more
mysterious treasures. Here and there were wooden and in some cases metal creations of puppets,
marionettes. Some were lifelike with rouged cheeks, Chiclet smiles and tufts of what looked to
be human or horse hair, dolls depicting young kids, older people, soldiers, horses, a yellow
Labrador. Faces were happy, sad, evil, innocent and exotically unknowable. Other puppets were
more abstract in form, finished but made of pieces that suggested a head, a body, arms and legs,
yet not defined in a comfortable way. I discovered that every wall was covered with drawings
and paintings, oils and pastels, some charcoal sketches, not of birdhouses but of larger buildings,
of statues, of sculptures that looked like they would be constructed from iron or steel. And
everywhere there were words, sometimes a single word written large and in bold paint, other
times lines of words, words in repetition, words proceeded from each other in some form of
evolution: strangle, single, singe. I realized that I was not simply in someones barn, I was not in
someones very personal workspace, I was in a place where I could see their entire world, I was
in fact in their mind. These were not just idle hobby things, casual drawings or paintings, these
were perspectives, ideas, concepts, trials and disappointments. I dont know how to tell you that

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I knew this, but I did. The windows themselves were papered over with more of these drawings,
some looked like they would be public sculptures in a park or in front of a bank building,
I saw and realized that I was looking not at some lonely mans solitary efforts to fill time
on the farm but at piece of mankinds timeless preoccupation with seeking what it means to be
human, a preoccupation that leads to endless efforts by endless seekers of what may never be
found, does it evolve faster than we can recognize it, or are we simply underestimating our
capabilities to penetrate even the simplest mystery, or have we simply embarked on a blind
journey taking with us a light that was meant for simpler things words, things, order, color,
shape and meaning.
I was holding up the lantern trying to read the sloppy handwriting on these amateurish
but impressive sketches when the entire window exploded in my face.

maleficent
incalcitrant

truculent
The paper that had been taped to the glass saved me from any injury, but the window had
been obliterated and opened up into the dark fog of the night. I held up the lantern to see what
was out there, trembling from the terror that this sudden violence had caused. I could see
nothing out there at first but then I could begin to make out a black line in the fog that seemed to
be moving, riding up and down like a baton, it was coming closer, growing darker in color and
more solid in shape. I could not imagine what it could be. But within seconds a pale white
shape began to take form within the white fog and the out of that white cloud within a cloud I

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saw a woman materialize several yards away from me, she was holding this black object in her
hands, she wore a white gown that covered her from her shoulders to her feet, her hair was a
cloud of pure white and straying off in wisps that looked like strands of the fog itself. As she
approached I saw that black object was in fact a shotgun in her hands and I then could recognize
the now older and grayer features of a once familiar face.
walker now you is dead you hears me for ten years you been dead now and you needs to
stay that way you hear me walker you get back to where you damn belong I dont care if these
bullets wont harms ya I will take them to you all your damn wine and whiskey is gone now I
done throws it all away ten years ago dont seems to me a ghost needs to be drinking anymore
but if any ghostd be a drunkard it would be you walker anyway I done been rid of you once
already and that should be enough
When do you know you are an alcoholic? Yea well fuck you very much.

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SUMMER

Behind the bar, a redtopped mixologist of inebriating, liberating, and licentious libations,
a hirsute many freckled handler of salt, oils, chips and nuts, wiper of wet rings, dropped beer
suds and anything that could exude or expulse from a carelessly packed and overflooding
alimentary system, and last but not least the bushy eyebrowed green eyed master of the satellite
TV: Rusty.
Ample and callipygous, Junoesque, taut and tandy, bareskinned and highheeled, wet
lipped, savory and unabashed with inflated breasts and bouncy greased buttocks, hung with tacks
and tape: the calendar girls.
Sunk in the shadows of selfspun despair, murmuring, muttering pathetically when not
silently pining, whining: Gerald the toll booth attendant.
Lumped in varying forms of earthy, leaden, hunchbacked, mutant and lumpy attendance,
pigs at a trough, three of the regulars: Barney, Fred and Mason.
Missing in action: Flint and Tyson

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More fondly memorialized on cigar box banjoes hung on poorly lit walls: the deceased
worthy.
About to make a barely noticed but still welcome entrance: Dorsey.
Others who will come and then they will go, of most considerable stature, of terrible
heights, remarkable girths and vagarious appetites: the Preacher, the Sheriff and the Detective.
At some point in this evening, destined to make a more head-turning, head-scratching
entrance, invigorated, enchanted, enthused, loquacious, desiring of cheap meaningless
friendship, longing for false but chummy comradery, ready to fight any good fight, raring to go,
heaped full of scorn, pissing vinegar, in other words totally and shitfaced drunk and still alive
despite being shot at: the writer.
Last to enter, frighteningly sober, without respect for mans sanctuary, lacking fear, no
regard for the smell, the darkness, the sweat and smoke of mans den, pursuing a lost cause,
enraged and enlarged by rage: ok, lets save the best for last.
How about a horse?
Yep, clearly.
And smarter than a coyote?
If they is smarter than a dog then they is probably smarter than a coyote.
How about a monkey then?
Nah, monkeys are smarter. They is almost smart as a child I think some think.
How about an elephant?

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Elephants are smarter than children, at least smarter than boys. Maybe girls too. So
you know they is smarter than pigs.
Dolphins. How about a dolphin?
Ok. Shut up Barney. Sorry I said anything.
You told me to name five animals smarter then a pig.
Now Is sorry I did. Shut up. Im watching the game.
Then whyd you ask me that?
Cuz I figured youd sit thinking about it silently for a few hours. Now shut up.
Ice plugging his nostrils, the smell of pig manure frozen to his hair and pants, on bowed
legs that were cowboying in from out of the winter cold, doffing coat and hat and glove, pulling
up a stool with his name on it, as previously forementioned: Dorsey.
Hey Rusty. Hey Fred, Barney.
Hey hey hey
Lowering his mouth to the ear of the intended recipient, placing a hand on the wide
boney shoulders of the recipient, raising his voice almost to a shout to the recipient: Dorsey
How are we doing Mason!
Startled, balding head wobbly on a neck of ninety year old bones, face formed as in the
folds of an old leather glove, eyes sagging like dying oysters: Mason.
Oh, oh, howre you doing Dorsey. How are you?
Good.

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Satisfied, ruby cheeked, watery eyed, as if to catch pigs in a creek, casting his voice in a
wider net: Dorsey.
Hey boys, whats the score?
Thirty one to twenty seven, down four.
Need a touchdown huh.
Yea, a minute forty eight.
That cold air felt good. Rusty, can we open the door for a while? Its hotter than July
in here.
Not opening the fucking door in the middle of winter. You guys dont drink enough to
pay the oil bill to begin with.
Leaning on the bar, leaning into the barkeep, whispering: Dorsey.
Hey, Rusty whos that?
Overhearing and then answering in like whisper: Fred.
Its Gerald.
Whos he? I seen him.
If you crossed the bridge youve seen him.
Yea, the tollbooth guy.
Yep.
Aint seen him around before.
Lost his girl

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Didnt lose his girl.
Excuse me, his girl is fucking another guy.
A bevvy of fucking guys.
A bevvy?
A shitload.
What, he just find this out?
Seems shes six months along.
And shes still fucking around on him
Worse, it aint his to begin with.
Hey then Id be bummed too.
That aint why hes bummed
Huh?
Hes still wanting to marry her. But now she left him.
For the father huh.
Nope, some other guy.
Anyone try talking to him?
Fuck that, someone should knock some sense into him.
Nah, leave em alone.
So hey I got a question. Whos on the bridge tonight?
Must have someone. He cant be the only one.
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WALKER
Who knows. Maybe no ones going to East B tonight.
Some painted ladies over therell be pretty mad.
Some empty g-strings.
Laughing, with some effort: Dorsey.
Hey, anyone seen Tyson?
Hes in Omaha.
Whats he doing there?
Fuel truck broke down. Took his rig.
Tyson?
Yea Mason.
Hes in Omaha.
Right.
Back to the game, between salt swelled lips, cracking shells, chomping nuts, spitting
skins: Fred.
Damn! Shouldve took a timeout. Just giving the game away. Like usual.
I was waiting for him to help me with the hog heaters. Ended up doing it myself which
took me all afternoon. Ive done seen so much pig shit and listened to so much pig squealing in
one day that I cant bear to look another pig in the face.
Speaking of that, didnt see you at Tommys funeral.
Couldnt make it, had to get them heaters up for all them suckers freeze.

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You gotta go to funerals to make sure someone comes to your funeral.
Around here all you need is food to get people to your funeral.
Feel for his Mabel. Them six kids. Not sure how shed going to do it.
What you think shes going to do?
Dont know. Sell the farm. She cant manage all them pigs.
Tommy was a good pig man, but he was not up to the times.
True, that farm ain't worth much. Poor Mabel.
Tommy was too young you know.
Too young for what?
What do you think? Youre only too young for one thing. And thats croaking.
Could be too young to drive.
When did you start?
Nine, ten.
How about drinking?
Same.
See.
Whats the right age?
Some say you should die in the winter of your life. Tommy, he done pick the summer
of his.
All I know is youre never too old to die.

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WALKER
Its all a game of roulette.
Luck is what you make of it.
Unless youre Walker.
Yea, well, his luck has done run out it seems. Looks like they picked him up today.
Fred, you lose a tooth?
Yea. Damn it to hell. Not many left you know.
Better to lose your teeth than your hair.
No way. Id give up hair for my chompers any day.
Only cuz you got some.
Women see your hair fore they see your teeth.
Some things you gotta have.
Like a brain?
No Barney here is proof of that.
I remember Tommy once told me that he dated a girl when he was in the Army and she
had no asshole.
What?
Why was he looking for it?
Gotta have an asshole. Come on.
He swore.
Clearly Tommy couldnt tell an asshole from a hole in the ground.

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Sure as hell can now. Ha Har.
Lets leave old Tommy alone, being hes dead and all.
Tall as a silo, thin as a barren tree, hunched shoulders bearing the weight of a towns
many overweight souls, cheeks reddened from either the cold or from staring into the fire of the
devils den, hair once the cap is lifted a mess of spikes and waves that fingers cannot smooth,
nose and lips white as if they had been kissed by a ghost: the Preacher.
Howdy Reverend.
Howdy Rusty.
Nice service today, Reverend.
Thanks Fred. Howdy Mason.
Came in for something to warm you up?
Not really, Rusty, but what the hell, give me a scotch.
Well okay?
Sure. Hi Dorsey, hows the Missus?
Good. Plump and happy.
Thanks Rusty.
On the house Reverend.
Well heres to Tommy. May he find his way through the ways of heaven.
Cheers.
Nice funeral all right.

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WALKER
At least nothing bad happened, huh?
Nothing good, nothing bad. Just like Tommy his funeral was.
Just like him.
Could have been like Ol Dales funeral.
Ah shit! Raining like a swine of pissing sows that day.
What happened?
Ah man! All that rain and Dales wife, well she slipped in that the mud, and she
werent no small woman, so she hit the ground hard, and then slid right into the hole, she did.
The hole?
Full six feet. Couldnt get her out, all slippery and muddy and stuff. And like I said she
werent no small woman to begin with.
Remember Missus Hamiltons funeral when the casket done broke?
Sure.
She fell plumb out of the box. No lie, Reverend, trundled right out right in front of
everyone. Not wearing no skivvies for her trip to heaven either.
Oh my, that werent a pretty sight for a Sunday morn.
Or any day. She was what a hunnerd?
What was the worse thing you seen at a funeral Reverend? You must have seen a fair
number of doosies.
Ah, boys, now that wouldnt be right for me to say.
Ah, just the guys here Reverend.
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WALKER
Ah, OK. It was a childs funeral that was the most unusual one I guess youd say.
No!
Yep. See, they were about to lower the coffin when a girl, the deceaseds sister, started
crying on account she had her brothers toy in her hands, a truck or a bulldozer it was, and it was
supposed to have been put in the coffin with the boy, for him to play with you know, in eternity.
At least it werent one of them ringing game toys, can you imagine hearing that for all
eternity.
Had one of those when I was a pipsqueak, yep.
At least it werent one of them ringing game toys, can you imagine hearing that for all
eternity.
So the coffin is nailed you know
Or screwed shut sometimes.
Right and you cant open it at this point, so the parents say to the little girl that they will
put the toy in the ground with the coffin, but that just sent this girl to crying even louder, her
screams are filling the entire countryside and so the father got some tool, some pry bar from
somewhere, and sets to opening the casket up right there.
Ooo.. I know what happened, the kids pops out right, hes been alive all this time.
Dont spoil the story Fred.
Nope its worse.
Worse? Ah great.

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WALKER
The coffin is low to the ground you know so when they finally get that lid off, well
everyone can see
Its the wrong boy.
Fred shut up.
Nope, the fact was he werent in there at all.
Its empty?
Yah, as empty as Satans book of promises.
As empty as what?
Completely empty Mason!
Oh, oh. Not good.
Its empty and the little girl she now lets out a piercing scream like you wont believe,
like you have never heard, cuts right through your skull this wail did and the mother well she
nearly faints, someone catches her, and the fathers knees are buckling like hes been suckered
with a right cross and everyone just starts backing away from that coffin.
This is good.
And then, probably half a mile away, we all hear another shout and we all look and
what do we see but this small boy running across the fields towards us.
Ah my this is a dandy.
Its a miracle story.
His name was Randy?
No Mason, I said dandy.
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WALKER
His name was Dandy? Why, what kind of a name is that?
Go on Reverend.
So here is this small boy running towards us, dressed in his little black suit with his
white shirt and tie, his hair bobbing on his head, calling for us, running fast as he can.
O my fucking god oops, sorry.
Forgiven
Shit Fred be more careful will ya?
Now the mother faints for dead herself. The father collapses to his knees again and he
begins to pray like a dying man, everyone else is waiting in dead silence as this little boy runs
towards us, everyone except the little girl, before anyone can stop her she goes tearing off across
the field towards the little boy.
This is too much. Cant take it. Im stepping outside.
Hush. Stay right here you woose.
Thats what happened, there was a hush went over the crowd there as they watched this
boy running in their direction and the little girl running in his direction, even I who I have to
admit has some skepticism about things of a supernatural order was beginning to feel a bit
queasy. Hey Rusty, can you pour me another?
Sure Reverend, you done earned this already.
Reverend dont stop, what happened?
Was it a ghost?
Get this story to the end, Reverend, you are killing us.
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WALKER
This cant be true.
Tis true, Fred.
Cant be, thats what I always tell myself in those movies, you know.
And so finally, we watch the little boy stop and the little girl she keeps on running,
running all the way up to the little boy, probably a hundred yards away. She gets to him and there
she stops and they are facing each other, face to face, all of us wondering what is going on?
What are they talking about? When after a few minutes, the little girl turns around and starts
running back towards us. The little boy watches her for a minute and then he turns the other way
and begins running back to where he had come from.
Which was where?
This takes forever, we are all there waiting. Thanks Rusty. And finally the little girl
gets back to where we are standing, she is all out of breath, but there is a smile on her face. The
mother and father come up to her as if she had been abducted and released back to them, hat is
what you would have thought for how they hugged her and held her. Finally the father is down
on one knee and he holds her at a distance and asks here, what did he say?
Here it comes.
Unbelievable.
Still out of breath, still with this smile on her face, the little girl says the boy had come
running all the way from the funeral home to tell his dad that they had forgotten to put the dead
boys body in the casket. The boy was the undertakers son.
Holy shit!
Ah my god!
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WALKER
That is a goddamn good story Preacher.
Its true too.
Truth cant be beat.
Its a binder in my mind.
Whats a binder, Barney?
It something that I am going to bind up and keep. A binder.
Good for you Barnes.
I heard that before, Reverend.
You did Mason?
Sure. Storys been around for years.
Just happened last year.
Happened last year too? My god, who wouldve thought it could happen twice?
My, that was a good one. Whew.
Got some bumps still, look.
Is that the best funeral story you ever heard Rusty?
Right at the top there of all stories that parlay with death, Dorsey.
Mentally exhausted, vocally numbed, spiritually enthused, wondering silently in
inebriated half thoughts and semi-concepts about life, death and where in the hell is the
thereafter: the drunks.
So Reverend, can I ask you something?

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WALKER
Sure. Not sure I can answer you though.
When you said a bit back that you had some skepticism about things supernatural, what
were you saying? Do you mean you dont believe in you know
Of course he does Fred, hes a goddam preacher after all.
Skepticism Dorsey doesnt rule out faith. You could say I got faith, but what I believe
in, what seems to be true, what I would consider to be knowledge about both this world and the
next well that I aint so sure about.
Coming back up for air: Rusty.
Thats too much for these pea brains in here. All they got room for up here is their
social security number and the time the next game is coming on.
Speak for yourself Rusty. I consider my brain to be like a field of corn. Sometimes its
big and full but then sometimes you gotta mow it all down to reap the benefits.
Holy shit, Barneys philosophizing us.
What the hell does that mean Barney?
So what else you got going on Reverend?
Ah yea, busy day. Gotta go to the jail now.
On account of Walker?
Seems so. What do you guys know of all this?
Not much to tell you the truth.
Something dont seem quite right.
Nothing is right when something like that happens to a little girl like that.
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WALKER
No it sure dont.
Cain and Abel.
Whats that Reverend?
From the Bible, the story of Cain and Abel.
Why you bringing that up?
With a wink of his rheumy eye to the Preacher: Mason.
I know why.
You do Mason?
Cain killed his brother Abel over jealousy. You need to know your Bible.
We know the story Mason.
You know I have come to think that maybe Cain came to be born of the serpent and not
Adam?
Is that true Reverend what Mason says?
In some peoples thoughts.
Mason is always reading things and then he thinks he thought it up. Huh Mason?
And so my idea is that man is infected with that evil. Its a part of him, no cure for it. In
all of us.
Many interpretations to that Mason.
But you brought up Cain, Preacher. And I knows why. Cuz were infected.
Wouldnt be so sure that is why I brought it up. Not sure why I did.

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WALKER
Reverend, if anyone would know the answer to this, it would be you I suppose.
Not sure that is correct to assume, but go ahead Fred.
Why would God allow such a thing to happen? From where I sit, it seems that its the
innocent victims that suffer the terrible things happen to them, while the evil ones they go free.
Evil does not go free, Fred. We men have to catch up with it. And if we dont then God
will.
Punching his collapsed and hardly hardy chest: Mason
Its all in us, Preacher, inside here.
Why does God allow this Reverend? Makes no sense to me.
Maybe that is Gods way of making us good men raise our own hammers of justice.
And Tommys death? Werent no sense or reason to that. And then the Terrells son
Darryl being killed in Iraq by a Jeep falling on him? No sense to that either. In my opinion if
God is the reason these bad things happen, then why have a God at all? Why this God?
Gods ways are not known to us.
Dont we have the Bible to tell us? Aint the answers there?
The bible is not necessarily the word of God. It was written by men.
Well, I think God needs to open his kimono a bit for me to believe alright.
Open Gods kimono and that would be a sight Im sure.
God dont wear a kimono.
Then what exactly does he wear Mason?
He wears a fine linen jacket and pants with a silk shirt.
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WALKER
Yea, yea, you read that in some book too. In GQ probably, huh.
Guys, aint we all had this conversation before? Seems it takes yens a few drinks for
your minds to get loose enough to turn to God and all these here spiritual arguments. Couldnt
you stay sober just long enough to see the end of the game?
Ive seen it for myself. Fine fine linen. Not a wrinkle in it.
Make no mistake Reverend, Im a God fearing as any other but I like any other man
care when things happen to someone like Jeri Lynn.
His initials on his shirt cuff.
Ask not about gods intentions but of ours. Thats where evil is, in us.
Then we are a pathetic set of creatures. Thats what I think.
Give Fred here another drink, his sorrows are beginning to sorrow me and I have had
enough sorrow for one day.
Finishing his drink, placing the glass carefully, thoughtfully, slightly religiously on the
bartop, before standing and readying to leave: the Preacher.
Rusty, you gotta guitar for Tommy?
Not yet, working on her over there.
Reaching into his pocket, pulling out a hog call, flipping it like a minnow in his palm: the
Preacher.
Raising his head: Mason
I aint seen one of them in years. But I knows they is never as good as the mouth call.
O, shit, here we go again.
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WALKER
Well listen, one of the first things you learn on a farm back in the days is hog-calling.
Pigs are temperamental you know. Omit to call them, and they'll starve rather than put on the
nose-bag. Call them right, and they will follow you to the ends of the earth with their mouths
watering. But not with one of them things. No.
Well, Mason, I do have to move on
Calling hogs is lost art it is. No need to call em any more they are all wrecked up in
pens all day. Used to be you could tell a mans roots by his pig call. If he was from Wisconsin,
for example, hed use the words, poig, poig, poig to bring home the bacon. In most of Illinois,
they call burp, burp, burp, while in Minnesota, you find peega, peega, peega whereas in
Milwaukee, with all them people of German descent, you will hear the good old komm
schweine, komm schweine. Oh, yes, there are all sorts of pig-calls, not counting such things as
beating on tin cans with axes or rattling pebbles in a suit-case.
Ok Mason, well, this here call was Tommys, he gave it to me and I just thought you
could put it on his cigar box
You see, I knew a man out in Nebraska who used to call his pigs by tapping on the
edge of the trough with his wooden leg. But this turned out to be fatal. One evening, hearing a
woodpecker at the top of a tree, they started shinning up it and when the man came out he found
them all lying there with their necks broke.
You done something downright fatal Reverend, you got Mason going now on pig
calling. And aint going to end any time soon.
And he confuses what he knows with what hes read.

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WALKER
Most people don't know it, but I got it straight from the famous lips of Fred Patzel, the
hog-calling champion of the Swine and Roses that there is a one to call all pigs. I mean, people
say he could bring pork chops leaping from their plates.
Showing the rare illumination of a dim light behind his close knit eyes: Fred.
I know that Patzel feller. From up in Wisconsin right? He were well known alright
even out here, though not so much for his pig calls
What was he known for then?
Seems he was a grave digger of some reputation.
At Fred, wagging a bent and large knuckled finger: Mason
Thats right. That was him alright. He told me once that, no matter whether an animal
has been trained to answer to the Illinois burp or the Minnesota oink, it will always respond
immediately to this one magic call. Call out your oink in Illinois or burp in Minnesota, and the
animal merely raises it eyebrows and stares coldly. But go to either state and call hoo-oo-ey
A grave digger. Your telling me theres a guy known for digging graves?
Sure. Wouldnt you want to know that your dear ones lay straight, level and true in a
perfectly sculptured graves. Right Reverend?
Well, the best labors are done as art. OK, got to get myself to the jail.
Yes sir, that was Patzel alright. He had a vision, Patzel did, a vision that one day a boar
would destroy his city.
Good luck, Reverend. I hear the people are up in arms over there. Watch yourself.
Thanks. God bless you all.

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WALKER
Beware Reverend, a boar will destroy your kingdom!
God Bless, Reverend.
Hat back atop his pious, bowing head, moving with the glide of a humble commitment,
closing the door behind him: the Preacher.
Ok Mason, no more pigcall pigshit. How many times we got to hear that.
Now who in the hell would want that job?
The Reverends?
Yea, I mean shit, nothing but funerals and last rites, married couples screaming at each
other, talking before a congregation that is half drunk and half asleep. All that for what?
Its like insurance, I guess.
Preachers a good guy though.
Insurance none of us have got.
Where else does the man of god come in and have a drink with ya, huh?
May not be such great insurance. If youre a preacher and you fuck up in even a little
way that is like fucking up in a big way if you are one of us heathens.
Like maybe he goes to hell if he drops a Bible or accidently says goddamn or fuck
Jesus Christ or something like that?
Yea, wouldnt want that insurance, for sure.
Were you there that Sunday when Old Darcy fell asleep in church and must of had a
dream or something cuz he woke up all a sudden and yelled Shit! real loud.
No, never heard about that.
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WALKER
God would probably forgive Darcy for that. Preacher could never get away with
something like that.
You think God smiles when we do stupid shit like that?
Darcy told me afterwards that he had been having a dream that he dropped his
grandchild or something like that.
Has to. All the stupid shit we do. He better be smiling or he is pretty miserable up
there.
Preacher gave a nice eulogy.
True.
Reminding us that life is a passing moment that has already passed.
Is that what he said?
Something like that.
Sounds good.
Why aint he married?
I dont know. Cuz hes smarter than the rest of us?
Think hes a fag?
Nah.
Why not?
Cuz you can tell. He aint a fag, you fag.
Here. Heres to a good man, all. Cheers to the Preacher.

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WALKER
Sure is. Cheers. But he can have his job, thats for sure.
Lot worse jobs than that.
Yea, tell me three, Barney.
Uhh. Easy. Bagging road kill off the highway
Yea, especially the ones they call scrapers.
cleaning the bedsheets at the old persons home
Aaa, who cares.
Emptying the Port-a-Johns at the fair.
Those aint so bad Barnes. How about being the Presidents body guard? Gotta stand
there, put your chest out and take the bullet anytime.
Worse than that how about being the guy who has to stay awake all night at the nuclear
power plant? Nothing to do but watch for alight to go on. Fall asleep and the place could blow
up the earth.
That aint a job.
Sure is Barney. Learned about it on TV. Said it was the most stressful job on the
planet. Saw on the Internet too there are these nurses in China who all they do all day is jerk off
guys for artificial insemination.
Nothing wrong with that job, not if youre a girl.
If you was a guy and had that job that would be rough. Probably dont give you a
choice over there. Just glad to work, them people are.

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WALKER
If you are one of them gals, what do you do when you go home? The last thing you
want to see is your hubbys wiener.
Does your wife want to see yours Dorsey?
Shes forgot I has one. Sad thing is so have I! Ha Har!
None of those are the worse jobs, not by far.
Okay, Rusty, then you tell us what the worse job is.
Ok
Give us five.
Number one, being a white man in Africa
That aint a job either. And thats just being a racist asshole.
a faggot in the Marines
Not fun at all.
bagging the pig intestines and shit at the slaughter house
nah, you get used to that shit. Did that when I was a kid. That aint so bad.
being the doctor at an AIDS clinic who has to feel their nuts and ask them to cough.
Yea, that would be bad.
Is that it?
You need more?
Asked you for five. That was four unless I have one less finger than I had yesterday.
Number five then, tending bar for you ugly miserable motherfuckers.

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WALKER
Knew that was coming.
Well, if it werent for us youd have no customers at all. So fuck you too very much.
Fourth down again. You gotta start thinking these games are fixed. Cant make a play
all game long and now in the last minute its like they are skating down the field like it were
nothing.
Now what happened with Jerri Lynn, now that was damn wrong.
Hell right it was wrong.
Nah, you cant do that to any child, permanent damage and a lifetime of misery, not just
for the child, but for the mother and everyone else.
Damn that pass was just wasted. This is it, they gotta go for it. Whats to think about?
Who do you supposed done it?
Seems the Sheriff has someone in mind.
Yea, Fred, who?
Seems he thinks Walker might have done it.
Thats ludicrous. Walkers strange but not that strange.
Same people said he raped her in the first place, hes the one who knocked her up a
while back.
And the young Walker dont seem to mind. Dont make sense.
I dont get that, I tell you. Not at all.
Well, Ive known Walker a long time. He may be peculiar but he aint one to do that.
There aint a man in B capable of doing that level of crime.
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WALKER
Bet it was some drifter, some injun maybe, a drunk you know.
Flint told the detective that he was here at Rustys when he found her. But he werent.
Didnt see him and I was here.
I know, strange, huh?
Hey speak of the devil, here he comes now.
Who?
Immense, cloudlike in its immensity, covering the storefront windows, passing like a
cloud, filling the open door, entering, closing the door, standing there like a fat giant of a man:
the Detective.
Howdy.
Howdy Detective.
Walking to the near end of the bar, facing the fat man, wiping the bartop clean, asking,
what can I do you for: Rusty.
Bourbon. Neat.
Sitting on a stool, half on half off, coat still hung across his broad meaty shoulders, belly
to the bar: the Detective.
How are we doing Freddy?
Smiling, nodding, looking down: Fred.
Hows the game?
First down. They might pull this off. Course they never do. Always come close then
fall down. But who knows.
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WALKER
How much you got on it?
Two hundred. Howd you know.
Can tell by your posture. Youre hunched over like a man who is losing, defeated.
Never let others know when you feel defeated. Anyone seen Flint around?
Shoulders raising, fingers spreading, heads rolling, eyes glancing across, over, about, into
and out of each others glancing eyes, same answer emanating from cautious mouths, nope: all.
Scratching his chin: Rusty.
Not since the last time we talked.
Pinching the shot glass, looking into the dark amber, sitting the edge on wet lower lip,
tilting head back and glass up, swallowing it down, smacking the bar top, pointing with a finger
for another: the Detective.
So detective, you figure out who done it?
Done what?
What they did to Jeri Lynn of course.
Sure.
You do, you know?
Sure we know. We just aint sure who it is. But we knows alright.
Poured into ample gullet, past domino teeth and over a tongue like a bulls, gulping
another shot down: the Detective.
Another one okay.
Sure. But why aint the Sheriff handling this?
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WALKER
He is. But sometimes you need a third eye I guess.
Another bourbon: the Detective.
Know what a third eye is?
A detective?
No. Got it wrong myself. The question is, what do you call a pig with three eyes?
I dont know, a freaking pig, I guess.
A Piiig, with three Is. Get it?
Yea.
Speaking of pigs, why aint you working on whosever stealing ours?
Didnt know about that.
Yep, over a hundred from Dale Sergeants farm just this week.
Right before he was to take em to market.
Them are somebody elses pork chops now.
More than three hundred the month before from another farm up the way.
Pulling a handkerchief from his front pocket, spreading it out, laying it across the fat
palm of his hand, then wiping off his face: the Detective.
Hot in here. How in Sam Hill do you steal three hundred squealing pigs?
None of us can figure it.
That would take a truck.
Or a spaceship maybe.

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WALKER
Folding the handkerchief into squares, shoving back into his pocket: the Detective.
If you ask me, dont seem like someone on the outside is doing that.
You think these farmers are stealing from themselves?
Everyone else is right? One for the road?
Sure, Detective. Here you go.
A fiery belch, then a deep sigh of burning bourbonic relief, followed by the smack of
glass bottom to bartop: the Detective.
Say what do you guys think of Walker?
Same as everyone I suppose
Which is?
Strange guy.
His wife was a beauty once though.
Sure was. If our species didnt have a proper willy, shed be a reason to ask God for
one.
What, just so she could snatch it off you.
Leaving his stool with elephantine grace, moving through space as if none properly
existed to fully accommodate him, his head in a cloud above the cloud of his great sweating,
sweltering, swaying, lumbering, near slumbering, earth pounding, earth tilting, earthsized body:
the Detective.
Suppose to snow tonight?
Nope calling for clear skies.
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WALKER
Means it will be cold then.
Most likely.
Titled head, open palm, raised eyebrow, basically asking, what do I owe you: the
Detective.
On the house, Detective.
Well if you do see Flint, be sure to tell him to call me.
Sure.
Ok boys. Thanks.
A cloud that passed from inside to outside to another land: the Detective.
Hes tanked.
No kidding. He aint solving this crime tonight unless who done it buys him a drink
first.
Hey Fred, so Sheriff thinks its Walker but whats the detective really think who done
it?
Dont know.
You were with him all day right, he didnt say anything?
Said plenty things alright. Not all of them within my understanding. Maybe hes got
his own ideas.
Walkers a strange guy though.
Sometimes its the normal people that do the things that scare you. Like Grady killing
his wife, remember that. He was what nearing ninety. Killed her with an iron.
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WALKER
If your ninety you aint normal.
Average lifespan is less than seventy five, Dorsey.
Im eighty nine.
See, Masons almost ninety. He is pretty normal.
One more year of normal. Thats all hes got.
Whats that Dorsey?
I said you are all we got, Mason. Stick around.
Oh, oh. Ok.
Grady werent crazy though. Some thought just come over him.
Maybe she asked him to what they call that euthanol euthaneen
If she asked for it, it wouldnt have been kill me with an iron. Pillow maybe, even a
gun to the head. Not a fucking iron though.
Euthanize thats it.
Third down again. Third and fifteen. He cant keep doing this. Gonna catch up with
him soon. Watch him gag.
The world is cruel, you know that Fred. In fact if it werent so cruel we wouldnt have
as much fun as we do, you know that. When the world is as cruel as it is the only thing you can
do to fight that is to laugh right Dorsey? Thats why we are as funny as we are.
Im not thinking we are so funny all that much of the time .

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WALKER
Thats cuz youre always crying in your beer Dorsey. Lift you fucking head up. Life is
a joke you know that? Marry a gal you think you love and years later she is a piece of furniture
that you cant afford to reupholster
She is that huge.
Thats what I done said.
Ha. Har.
Take over your daddys land thinking you will carry on the farm and then find out the
only way you can make any money is to let the government pay you not to farm it.
Nothing funny about that.
Its so sad its plum funny, Barnes. Think about it. Then you have some kids and you
think they will at least grow up to be football stars in college or a nurse or maybe a doctor. And
they can barely pass the tests to work at the powered milk factory. You gotta pay their rent each
month so they wont get kicked out.
Tell me about it, I got me four of em.
Then you got a mom whos dying of diabetes and a dad whos a drunk and hes got
glaucoma and all they do is fall down and fight with you when you try to help them. Boys, when
youre surrounded by such a miserable menagerie of things, all you can do is laugh. Aint that
right Freddy boy?
Yep.
With a large hat set down on a impossibly large forehead that was growing out like a
mantle over eyes spread in a deers gaze, jowls and jaws large enough to catch bats, a nose that
hung like a lumpy tuber, all stuck to a head that would never cease growing, on shoulders broad
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WALKER
enough to fill a doorjamb, on a body that began broad as a doorjamb then slimmed awkwardly to
thin hips and knock-kneed legs, walking into the bar without smile or recognizable expression:
the Sheriff.
Hey Sheriff.
Hey Rusty, how goes it?
Good. Drink?
No thanks. Working.
Seems you got a lot of commotion going on all a sudden.
Yea, not a lot of good going on unfortunately. How are you fellers?
Good.
Not bad Sheriff.
Pulling off the gloves that covered hands as large as a pigs ham, the fingers broader than
hocks, the nails as large as quarters: the Sheriff.
Say did you guys ever hear about the blonde walking down the road with a pig under
her arm?
Nope.
Someone stops and asks, hey where did you get that? Pig answers, I won her in a raffle.
Ha. Har
Reaching into a dish of peanuts, cashews and almonds, filling his considerable maw,
chewing down the oily meats with closed eyes: the Sheriff.
Funny one Sheriff.
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WALKER
Naw it aint really. Say anyone seen my boy Flint around?
Not today, Sheriff. Seems he got quite a few of you people looking for him.
Yea, Rusty, the boy has got a knack for disappearing at the right times.
Heard he picked up Walker this evening.
Yep, Dorsey. But theyre telling me he aint there at the jail.
What do you think?
I think the world has all the stupid people it needs is what I think.
You think Walker done it?
Another fistful of nuts, licking the salt off swollen lips with a calfs purple tongue: the
Sheriff.
Dont know. Wont know.
But you got him at the jail.
Just for questioning.
Hows the missus Sheriff.
Shes good. Broke her toe you know.
Didnt know.
Yea. At one of them dance classes she goes to at night.
Seems Flint and Walker got something between them.
Why you say that?
Dont know, just seems so.

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Flint needs to figure for himself where he comes from. If not, then he is going to get
himself into an even bigger jam.
Fist of nutmeats, unchewed bits on lip and chin: the Sheriff.
What do you mean by that Sheriff?
Then, through opening door, bundled plump and capped with earmuffs and beanie,
tugging at mittens, tearing from his eyes, running from his nose, casting a cold silence across the
room, stamping his feet to free them of snow and cold, done with wild dogs, done with barns,
done with ghostly old women from the future with guns, entering without ceremony, without
acknowledgement, without greeting: the writer.
`

When do you know you are an alcoholic? How about when you walk into one of those

places, see the little sign on the table that says two drink minimum and you say, piece of cake!
How about when you sit down at the bar and the bartender brings you a beer on a barf bag!
How about when you realize friends call you Drunk cuz they dont know your real name. Ha ha
ha.
Just what I says. Ok boys, well you know what Im looking for.
Sure do. Good luck Sheriff.
Pulling off his coat, hanging it on a metal hook near a jukebox, unwrapping a scarf from
around his neck, pulling down the sleeves on his sweater, wiping his nose on a sleeve, tickling
his nose, flattening his long white hair: the writer again.
I, like everyone else I suppose, always had the fantasy of being a standup comic, havent
each of you thought about that, one time or another? Of course you have. It is the fantasy to be
up on stage and making an audience laugh. But really what that fantasy is about is about being
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in control. I control you, I am in control. I can make you mad, I can make you laugh, I can make
you hate me, love me, I can embarrass you. Thats what it is. We all want control. What is
behind your fantasy of being a standup comic is that really we all want to be the president, we
want to be the dictator, not forever, just for a few minutes. Just long enough to get off on the idea
and then go on to what we normally do during the day. Its just like masturbating, only funnier.
Ha, ha, ha.
Oh. Hear about the blonde who colored her hair?
Nope.
Another fistful from a bowlful that Rusty had just refilled: the Sheriff.
So she colors it black, then she goes walking past a pig farm and says to the pig farmer
there, hey if I can tell you how many pigs are in there can I have one of them squealers. Pig
farmer says, now young lady if you can guess how many pigs is in there I will let you take one
for your own. The girl say one hundred and seventy eight. The pig farmer was amazed as that
was the exact number. So he goes to the woman, by golly youre right. I guess you get one of
my pigs. The woman bends down picks one up and walks away. The farmer stops her before
she goes too far and says, hey Miss if I can guess the real color of your hair can I have my dog
back?
Ha Har.
Thanks for the laughs Sheriff.
Sitting down at the far end of the bar, closest to Mason who has not stopped looking
down at his still plentiful drink, four seats from Dorsey and two more distant from Fred and
Barney, rubbing his hands, picking up an advertisement for a local brew, letting out from his tiny
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mouth an issuance that sounded like a shwoosh, about to set elbows on the bar, then looking for
any residual stickiness before he finally set elbow to bartop, seemingly satisfied of the
cleanliness of his location: the writer as before.
By the way, all standup comics are alcoholics. Its true. You have to be. Not that we
have to be drunk to stand up here, in fact that rarely works out very well. No, we have to be
drunk to live with ourselves for what we do when were not up here. When we are not up here
we are broke, have miserable love lives, crappy relationships with our parents and spend our
time trying to avoid friends who are alcoholics. In fact we actually have no friends. That is one
reason why we come up here because for a few minutes I have a bunch of friends, right, right,
come on you can applaud. Yes, we are friends. Until I call you a drunk one too many times and
then you say something and I say something back and we end up hating each other but that is
what friends do, they stop being friends at some point.
Licking his lips, wiping hands on hits sleeves, pulling gloves back over those monstrous
hands, hat back atop a forehead that would make a sperm whale amorous, lumbering out through
the narrow space of the door: the Sheriff.
See I told you the other day the Sheriff knows.
You didnt tell me the other day nothing. And it aint a matter of whether the Sheriff
knows, its if he wants to know. If he wanted to know he would know. Thats all there is to it.
Funny that his wife is blonde huh? With all them jokes he tells and all.
Aint everything always a coincidence, Barney.
Thinks his wife broker her toe at a dance class, yea right. Probably broke it on some
bed post.
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Poor guy.
Detective today asked me if Flint looked like the Sheriff.
Ha, and I look like Michael Jordan.
If you look like Michael Jordan then I look like Obama.
It was a joke, Fred. Its called satire, being satirical.
Thats being ironic I think. Hell I dont know. High school was a long time ago.
Probably flunked that class anyway.
Tommy was good at school.
Yea and that got him far.
He joined the Army is why. Tossed his brains once he went there.
Sheriff when he was drinking once told me he wished Flint werent his son. Said it
would make things a lot easier.
Probably would.
Leaning against the bar nearest to Fred, legs crossed at the ankle, shoulders towards the
far end of the bar where the new patron had just staked a stool, his head at an angle, his hair still
red enough to make sense: Rusty the bartender.
Do you believe in evolution? Do you? Yes? No? I mean evolution is like its everywhere
isnt it? Is it something we are supposed to believe in or just simply accept? I mean I am not
sure any more. When does a scientific theory become something that just simply is? When did
we stop saying I believe in gravity? I dont believe in gravity. Do I believe in the speed of light?
Or is the speed of light just the speed of light. I dont believe in the color blue. I guess we call

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certain things facts, not theories. So is evolution a fact or a theory. That guy says its bullshit.
Well evolution seems to be the explanation for everything, for why birds have different kinds of
beaks, why whales have these little stubby back legs, why man has this opposable thumb, why
dogs don eat our faces off when we are sleeping and covered with pizza grease. If you want an
answer to those thing, you call on evolution. Hello? Evolution? Can you tell me why my balls
are right out there where everyone can kick them? Hello? Evolution? My girlfriend wont do
certain things in the bedroom. Can you explain that for me? Hello? Evolution? Why do I pee
more the older I get? Hello? Evolution?
Raising his eyes, squinting at the television screen, briefly, looking at the banners for the
Chicago Bears, briefly, looking over the calendar girls pasted on the mirror, very briefly, finding
the eyes of the bartender who has not moved from his position of leaning against the bar next to
Fred: the writer again.
I used to think evolution was just about sex, I mean without sex you cant create other
little mes and yous and that is what it is all about right? Well, sort of, what evolution is really
about is will those little me and yous make more mes and yous and will those other mes and yous
be more successful in creating more mes and yous than other mes and yous.
Silence: from everyone in the bar.
So if one thing is clear it is this: Ugly people are everywhere. Notice that? Look
around, there are more ugly people than beautiful people, more ugly people than good looking
people. There are more ugly people than any other kind of people. Its a fact. Not a belief. And
another thing thats clear: ugly people have as much sex as good looking people. In fact, I bet
you ugly people have more sex than good looking people, why? Because ugly people will have

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sex with other ugly people and good looking people wont. Thats pretty simple. How do I know?
Because Im ugly, thats how I know.
Hands raised to the sky one last time, body bowed with defeat, face masked in disbelief,
shoulders quivering with ruination, belly bloated with his own sense of loss, overall deflated by
his own endless stupidity: Fred.
They lost again, unfuckingbelievable.
Gotta give up on them Freddy. Betting with your heart never wins nothing.
But they had it. They had it right in their grasp.
Save your money for the women in your life. If you are going to waste it, waste it
good.
In fact, I think good looking people are simply here on earth to get us ugly people horny
enough to have sex with other ugly people.
His head rising like a fist of flies from a knuckle of shit: Gerald.
How did you know?
Hey Gerald, youve come back to join the living.
Know what?
What I done.
You aint said a thing since you come to visit us.
Aint you I come to visit, thats for sure. Not you either. Or you.
Leave him alone, hes gotta work through it himself.

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Work through it? Huh? Thats what it is. Thats what you call it. This aint work.
Sitting and drinking aint work. Sitting in a fucking two foot square coffin taking into my hand a
quarter that I watched you spit on, pull from your ass, or whatever else you think is funny, thats
work, thats what work is. Work is death.
No one would do that Gerald.
Ha! I see it all from where I sit. I see what people will stick in or into their orifices and
what they will pull out. Fucking animals. Fucking dungbeetles. People is.
Hey Rusty, I dont think Gerald needs no more.
Fuck you what I need. Bring it here. Everything good or bad. Comes out of an orifice.
Nose dripping into the foam of his new beer, eyes squeezing upon the thoughts that found
their way to his thick, sloppy tongue: Gerald.
I had a barrel of coins, all those extra dimes, nickels and quarters that people gave me,
the ones who did not think I was some idiot sitting in a booth, the pieces some people dropped
before it got to me hand. Over all them years. Must have been a hundred thousand of them,
couldnt even lift the damn keg. Had to roll it
Bobbing back nose first to his drink: Gerald.
Roll it where Gerald?
It was all for her. I began collecting them way before I met her, but when I met here I
knew I had been saving them for her all along, everyone of them I saved for her. Could have
bought a house with them coins I bet. Could have had a house together.
Gerald you got them coins still right?

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Moving but not moving with the living, moving with a tic that raised his head, his face
sop with drink, his eyes buried behind the swell he had created: Gerald.
Like a million silver fishes. It was a thing of fucking beauty. All free.
What?
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck what Dorsey? What is he talking about.
Where are them coins Gerald?
Deflating, collapsing, falling, flies back to their pile: Gerald.
Oh shit.
Oh shit what Dorsey. Whats going on?
He threw them coins in the river.
How do you know?
Fuck it, I know.
Turning on his heels, remote in one hand, a damp cloth in the other, squinting at the flat
screen set on a cradle next to the upper shelves of the bar, deftly finding the next game already in
progress: Rusty.
Coughing, gurgling, grunting, as if choking on the silence: the drunks.
Ever watch porn? No? Yea right. Everyone watches porn. They say women now watch
as much porn as men. Used to be porn was a guy thing. Now women are getting into it. Good
for you gals. Nothing wrong with that. Used to be that porn was sexploitation of women. Not
anymore. Sex is entertainment and people get paid to do it and we pay to watch it and just like
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we would love to be a professional athlete most of us would love to be paid to have sex. Who
wouldnt. But if you watch as much porn as I do you notice something pretty quickly, all those
girl are really really hot. There are no ugly bitches doing porn. Used to be. Ever click on the
retro tab? Get those old clips from the 60s and 70s? Aside from the fact that some of those
women had bushes that were twice the size of an average bikini today its true, remember those
big old beards, cmon, they didnt need bikinis, that heavy bush covered everything, couldnt see
a thing some of those women were downright ugly. Now in porn all the women are shaved,
and they are all beautiful too, all of them. Who are all these beautiful woman who fuck and suck
for money? They cant all be actresses. No way. You know what I think? I think they are just
ordinary people. The woman you see in the office, the woman who works at Macys behind the
cosmetic counter, your kids English teacher, that good looking gal who checks your groceries.
They are the porn stars of today. I know it.
Bulging in belly, shapelessly inflated in face, dark haired trimmed without any real care,
big handed and dirty nailed, sitting at the opposite end of the bar, facing directly the face of the
newcomer to the bar: Barney.
See, I believe the people we see around us are the porn stars we all watch every day on
our laptops, on our TVs, on our cell phones, yes on our cell phones. But not you ugly people.
You are not porn stars. The beautiful people are having sex in front of video cameras, while ugly
people are having real sex. Us ugly people are the only ones really getting it on, that is what this
is all about. We are the ones who are doing the real banging, having the real orgasms, getting
the real jollies out of the experience. Not you beautiful people, you are just trying to keep a hard
on for a few more minutes, trying to avoid making a pussy fart on camera, trying to look sexy

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and hot and pretend like you are enjoying it when in fact the guy who is boning you is really a
queer with shaved legs and chest and smells like a cologne called Rimjob.
Wet eyed, ruddy cheeked, picking up the advertisement for beer again, shifting broad
buttocks across a leather stool, finally seeking the eyes of the bartender who has been silently
studying, waiting: the writer.
Ugly people, we will inherit the earth. Beautiful people, you are our slaves. You are our
entertainment. You are our disposable Barbies and Kens and you are wasting your seed just so
we can sow ours and populate this earth with more ugly people and so continue our dominance.
That is a fact, not a theory.
Raising a finger to Rusty: the writer.
Speaking of ugly people and sex, sometimes one plus one does not equal two? Have you
noticed that? I mean, have you noticed that when two ugly people marry, their kid, for some
strange reason, is actually good looking? Doesnt happen all the time, but it does happen. And
good looking parents, two of them, they procreate and out comes some really ugly creature. It
may be Gods way of evening the score. But if we leave god out of this, as evolution tells us to,
then it is evolutions little game to keep us on our toes. To keep the ugly people from becoming
all there is, making sure there are some good looking people around to entertain us. Hello?
Evolution?
Approached by the bartender, looking over the taps, looking across the bottles of liquor in
front of the mirror, looking at the sample beers lined up not far from him, speaking with a slight
hesitation in his voice, talking with a discernible tinge of education, of unmanly softness,
uttering too many words for the content of his question, the question being what kind of light
beer would the bartender recommend: the writer.
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Snorting: Dorsey.
Harrumphing: Fred.
Silent contemplation of the waters before him: Mason.
Head buried in arms, whining lowly, dejected at the loss of his team, even more sorry
over the two gs now lost, accepting the finality of final defeat: Barney.
Picking up a glass, pulling down a tap, allowing air to run off, placing the glass beneath
the golden stream at a professional angle, smacking the tap back up pouring off a smidgeon of
foam, setting the glass of light beer on a round cardboard mat: Rusty.
Looking up, uttering a quiet thank you: the writer.
Looking away, feet still in their positions before the writer, one hand down on the
counter, talking to no one but saying loudly, thatll be three bucks: Rusty.
Hesitating, then groping pockets, front and then back, lifting a well worn, brown calfs
leather wallet from a pocket on his ass, a Christmas gift from years ago, filled with old receipts,
coupons, an advertisement for gout medicine, but no greenbacks, looking up peevishly, with a
raising of one eyebrow, a slight smile, a face expressing that it knows the answer, but asking
anyway if a credit card will do: the writer.
No: Rusty.
Looking hard at the piss yellow beer, a cold wind from the open door at his back, his face
flush, embarrassed, facing an even greater humiliation, about to put both hands down on the
counter to push off, about to offer a false but face-saving offer to go home and get some money:
the writer.
Its on me: Dorsey.
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Weight that had risen now falls, crashes back to stool and on elbows crashes also to the
bar, it all crashes softly, without a sound, but crashes all the same, the body collapsing with
sudden relief: the writer.
Why did the pig run away from the pig sty? He felt that the other pigs were taking him for
grunted.
Turning around, standing tall, one hand pointing to the ceiling, no, pointing now past the
ceiling, pointing through and beyond the ceiling and into the sky, shouting out in the loudest
voice heard on this night so far, its on me, lets all drink one for Tommy: Rusty.
As if awakening, suddenly squirming on their seats, jiggling fat and legs pumping, heads
up and squealing, a pack of whelps searching for their mothers teats: the drunks.
Here here. Har. Har.
It was good gathering though wasnt it?
For Tommy? Yea.
Heres to Tommy. A good man and man who gave us good things and good memories
of them.
Here, here.
Remember when Calvin died, that was tough.
Well Calvin was one of a kind werent he? That boy could lift a grown sow by her ears,
a pickup onto two wheels by its fender. Remember?
Sure did. A man of some fucking substance Calvin was. A real finisher, a tough
butcher of a man.

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Tommy was a good man too.
Sure was, one of the best.
Always remember when Calvin was at the HyVee fire and he done rushed in there
without no gear and came out with the entire freezer section of sausages and hams. Saved Bob
the grocer a few thousand bucks, remember?
What fire?
An old fire Mason, long ago
Oh, oh. Ok.
Oh sure. Or when Calvin took on those bikers on their hogs from Texas remember that?
Stood his ground in the middle of the road and started grabbing them dirtbags by the hair and the
belt buckles as they drove past, must have been fifteen or sixteen of them. All them bikers left
here squealing like pigs didnt they?
What do you call a pig with no clothes on? Streaky bacon!
Tommy had his days too.
Sure did.
Like when that giant boar got loose during the state fair and was heading right for the
kids area and Calvin being the only one fast enough to catch it and sure enough the only one
strong enough to rassle that thing to the ground, when they hit the ground there was this sound
like thunder, a shaking like we had some kind of earthquake and the dust rose up and covered
everyone but when they saw what had happened we were all smiles through that dust and spit it
out as happy as could be.

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Calvin was a man among men.
A hog man of hog men.
More hog to him than there was man, more man to him than hog. A manboar from his
hocks to his snout. Werent he?
What do you get when you cross a pig with a canary? I don't know, but when it sits on
your electric wire and sings, all your lights go out!
How many of them hotdogs did you eat at Tommys today?
Two. Werent enough to go around.
Werent that good either.
Nope, feeling them rise a bit. You too.
Yep, why I was asking.
You know there aint no shame in being ordinary.
We aint saying otherwise.
Tommy was plain ordinary, thats all. Not his fault. He were not Calvin that is for sure,
but none of us are. And so I say lets remember Tommy for what he was, a super ordinary guy, a
guy like us.
Here. Here.
This is the heart of the heart of the country right? Good old American values. Hard
work, honesty. Loyalty. What do you do here to entertain yourselves? Once the pigs are all
slaughtered, the cows milked and the land raped then what do you do?

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Looking from pudgy face to bloated face, seeking an opening, desiring to say a word, to
enter the conversational fray, to commune, to have intercourse, to bugger with words, going for
it: the writer.
I guess I missed the funeral.
You done missed a fine funeral. Did you know the poor but now properly disposed of
deceased?
I knew of him.
Well, he was one of us, a man of the earth he was, apples to apples and dust to dust is
what he was, thats for certain.
But why so glum? In some places they pay respect for the dead by making fun of them.
Whats that?
One by one, refilling the glasses, first Dorseys, then Freds, then Barneys, then last but
not least, at least not yet, the writers: Rusty.
In front of him the fresh beer is placed, onto his hand the suds rolling down the cold
glass, a finger on his other hand lifting in subtle acknowledgement, but also in question, as in, do
I need to pay for this: the writer.
Winking: Rusty.
Glasses raised: all.
Tommy boy!
His small mouth of two thin lips sucking down first foam and then with the cold fizzy
bitter watery water of life racing over tongue, down the throat: the writer.

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What were you saying writer?
Drawing a sleeve across his mouth: the writer.
Its a good way to relieve the sorrow. You tell jokes about the deceased. Remember the
good things.
Well there werent much funny about Tommy.
Not unless you consider how he died to be funny.
Seeing an opening, sensing his acceptance into a real conversation with the local drunks,
pursuing the lead, knowing timing was all, going literally for the kill: the writer.
How did he die?
An electric hesitation: all.
He fell.
Heads bowed, shoulders rolled forward, hairy necks bared as if ready to receive the truth
from a guillotine blade, deadly silent: all.
Blinking, drinking and awed: the writer.
Whats so funny about that?
Head down to his chest, beer glass against his forehead, eyes closed: Barney.
Stumbled into the pen, fell upon by his prime hog who was more scared than ornery, he
choked to death that way.
Looking up, one eyed, red eyed and blurry eyed: Barney.

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Some perverse people may think thats funny. That theres something funny about
falling and dying in pigshit like that. That someone would actually laugh about someone dying in
pigslop. That you might meet your maker in a pig sty.
Choked to death on pig shit, pig manure filled his mouth, pig feces stuffed his lungs like a
Thanksgiving turkey: a news article never written.
Struck by a remembrance of this story heard earlier, struck by the remembered sight of
the terrible guffaw that followed it, at first silent, then jiggling with giggling, then quaking with
shaking, then laughing chokingly: the writer.
Head back up, cutting short on what was to be a strong, poignant and deliberate draught
of his beer, smacking the near-full glass hard to the counter top of the bar, head bent down again
and swaying back and forth in a way drunks hang their heads and sway them before they say
something sour and dour: Fred.
Well, this here is a town where wes respectful of the dead and wears black if not on our
body then all through our hearts.
Well said Fred.
Guys, all I was saying is that in some places death is a time to celebrate, to remember
with laughter the person who has died. Its called a wake.
And I have to add that I resent you coming in here with your wakes and other shit.
You is foaming at the mouth again Fred.
We know who you are writer, we have seen you here in our town for more than a few
years and we dont take kindly to someone who just appears out of nowhere at a time like this
and expects us to listen to these cockamamie ideas, your bullshit attitudes.
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Motherly voiced, sensing danger, moving glasses out of impending harms way: Rusty.
Calm down, Fred, this aint no private party here, were a public bar.
This here is a bar for the public, and that public is the god fearing, death respecting
public that loved Tommy as we loved Tommy, not some public we dont care nothing about.
Stop it Fred.
I meant no disrespect, I was only trying to help you.
Well fuck off writer. Fat dumb fat fuck fucker fuck.
Hey Fred, that aint necessary. The writer here hes just trying to be a nice guy.
Offering something of what he can offer, thats all. So what do you mean writer by offering
some jokes about the deceased, may not be a bad idea for us to do something that takes the edge
off all this, you know what I mean.
They always start the elections here in the Midwest. During the summer every four years
this is where they start our electoral process. Why is that? Youre just a bunch of farmers for
Christs sake. What do you know about the rest of the world? I will tell you. Nothing! What do
you know about inner city schools. What do you know about marine life conservation? What do
you know about anything rally? I was talking to someone else and I asked them what they
thought about the wars in the Middle East and they said they didnt; known a thing about theme
and they were glad to keep it that way. That is the Midwest, the place that wants to know
nothing about anything else. There, that should be your state saying. And yet this is where
candidates decide if they are going to run for election or not. All based on your votes. And all
the camera crews come up here and they spend the day interviewing every Paul and JoAnne,

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asking them their opinions and you guys actually act like you are experts. Yea, experts at
knowing nothing.
Slumped, looped, blooped, but not whimped or whooped: the writer.
Leaning back against the shelves of liquor, arms crossed over his liver shelf, and taking
on the atmosphere of someone who always had something to say but knew that there was always
a time to say it, not before, not after: Rusty
Maybe what the writer said would be good for us. Dont just remember what you think
you should remember. Remember the real things about the guy, the things that if we remember
then maybe they will keep him alive. The stupid things he did, the bad things he did.
What did Tommy do?
Well not much I reckon upon reflection, that was the good thing about Tommy. He
never did anything.
He was pretty good whistler.
What do you say to a naked pig? I never sausage a body.
Darn good whistler he was.
Pig whistler?
Sure, but songs too.
Same dern song though, over and over again.
Yea, right. What song was that?
Dont know, but he killed that song for me. Whistled it so much he killed it.

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I asked someone today, how were they? You know what she said, she said she was tippety
top. Another time I asked someone the same question, you know what they said, they said I am
as right as rain, thank you. Asked another person, How are you? Middling to fair, he said.
Now what do these things mean? Sure they all mean the same thing, nothing. And that is the
point I am trying to make, you people, you Midwesterners here have more ways to say nothing
than any other tribe in America. You are the masters and navel gazers of nothing.
For me, Tommy will always be remembered for what he did that day all them summers
ago.
Hell yea, I remember that day! Who dont remember that day!
That was not just a day to remember, that was a day that Tommy made into a summer to
remember.
That was a summer that we will remember forever, that this town will remember
forever.
It was a day that became the summer, and a summer became a history that we can never
forget.
No doubt! Like you said it was not just a day but something iconic, something that
should be captured in a statue that we should put up downtown in honor of the Summer Tommy
made, one we cant not remember and should never forget!
You know you guys are right. How could we sit here and forget that summer Tommy
made last forever. That is what he left for us, that is what he made for us. We should make that
statue as big as Calvin
And put it right in the road after you get off the bridge
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and if we cant make a statue then we should create a plaque
Right over the river where it all happened that day.
I thought it was in Crapo Park where it happened?
and if we cant create a plaque we should name a church after him
St. Tommys Cathedral.
and if we cant get a church to do it, lets name a street after him.
Summer Tommy Street or Tommy Summer Street.
Tomsum street. Sumtom Street. Bum dum, cra dum bum tum. Sree da diddle wee dum
tom.
Yea boys, we need to remember Tommy and what he had done for us, for all of us, what
he done for the entire town. And so we need to remember to do something and not forget these
things like we always do when we fall from these stools and blindly zigzag our ways home.
Of course, no one knows nothing, everyone knows something. I accept that. So I have a
list of things that you Midwesterners know. How about these: You plant taters, you get taters.
Life is simpler if you plow around the stump. Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time
and annoys the pig. When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging. Dont sell the mule to buy a
plow. You cant wallow with pigs and expect not to get dirty. Dont name a pig you figure on
eating. Even a dog knows the difference between being tripped-over and kicked. Dont put gas in
a car youve already wrecked. You can put a coat and tie on a pig, and its still a pig. You cant
polish a turd. Never wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and the pig likes it.
Satisfied with such soft and cozy layers of nostalgic thought, heavy eyed with
remembrance, sated with gallons of drink, lumpy and happy, gassy and relishing the frequent
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digestive eructations, asses quick to stools, elbows smack to the bar, heads nodding off their
hirsute trunks: the hirsute drunks.
You cant polish a turd! I love it.
What would happen if pigs could fly? Bacon would go up! Why are pigs such great
football fans? They're always rooting. Why can't there be a Santa Pig? Pigs don't fit in chimneys.
Hey no boos, come on that ain't nice. Im allowed a few pig jokes. And before you get
too violent, let me confess something. I was born and raised here in this land of pigs and corn.
Lived here until I was eighteen then got out here as if my life depended on it. And it did. Quite
literally. So a few pigs jokes are okay.
So what am I doing here? you ask with a breath as hot as summer. Why dont I go back
you say? Let me wipe your spit off my face and tell you what you dont deserve to know. I dont
know why I am here. I am here out of a mystery that somehow took me by surprise one day, a
chance event, almost as if I had been abducted by alien beings and when they were done with me
they dropped my probed and violated body not at my old place of living but here, the place where
I had been born, the nightmare of my existence. As if it were all just some big old experiment to
see how much can the human mind can really tolerate. How much suffering can it take?
Because this is suffering people, living here with you, this is a nightmare, let me tell you. I
thought it was worse as can be living in a filthy little apartment in a crappy section of New York
City, crowded in by people who had no manners, who felt the whole world was their spittoon,
their toilet. But here, in this place of emptiness, pure emptiness, where the skies and the fields
and the horizons are empty, well you can figure something else is empty as well. And by that I
mean the craniums of the people who live here amidst this emptiness.

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Tell me. How many of you are alcoholics? None of you? Doesnt surprise me. Just
because you drink until your are bloated and blind with double vision doesnt mean youre an
alcoholic. Because to be an alcoholic means to recognize your behavior as abnormal. It means
to be abnormal, to be not normal, normal being the sober way of being in the world. Well, none
of you are alcoholics because everyone here is an alcoholic, so the norm is to be a lush. This is
you, morning day and night, this is you perched like bogmen on your stools sucking down your
light beers and making talk that would drive anyone else anywhere in the world insane. That is
you and your life.
I mean where else is the idea of being a neighbor mean you put at least five miles
between you and any other human being. Its true, I met a guy the other day who said he lived
five miles away from the next nearest house. I said doesnt that get a bit lonely? He said no, I
am looking for a house that is ten miles away from everyone, tired of my neighbors knowing
what I am doing. Now what do you suppose this guy is doing that he needs to be ten miles from
everyone else? Cultivating anthrax? Making bombs? Sounds pretty spooky to me.
I mean where else is the idea of secondary education something along the lines of
repeating the twelfth grade, aint I right, as you would say, but let me tell you, a lot of us do
escape. We do get out. Someone once told me there was more Iowans in San Diego than in
Iowa. Could that be true? That the real name for San Diego before the beaners got their way
was Des Moines-By-the-Bay. Its true.
You talk some stupid shit when you get drunk, you know that Fred?
Too wee cur rum a tum tum.
But where else can one go and be with such good friends, huh? I mean, really. We been
together how long Barney?
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Too long, I cant feel my penis or my legs.
I mean in terms of years.
In that case, its been forever.
Thats the right answer, forever! Heres to forever boys!
Where can you go and hear such things as we hear? Huh? We got the stories that make
up a life, the stories that make up a world. Where else can you hear such things as we hear?
Flying high, feeling muscular, feeling good, feeling like bursting out in song, feeling
drunk as a pig in slop, feeling at the top of his game, feeling in complete control, feeling the
feeling you get when you got your audience right where you want them, feeling that high when
you now you got that zinger and you are just about ready to zing, feeling far too cocky, feeling as
if he overestimated himself all of a sudden, feeling regret for something that has yet to happen,
feeling ready to burp but really about to blurt out something he would soon wish he hadnt: you
know who.
I mean where else but here would you hear someone say: I aint had so much fun since
the hogs ate little sister?
Wavering in their seats, drunk hardly more than usual, hardly hard of hearing, red faced
not from alcohol as much from a sudden flush of amygdalanic anger, unable to process the
sentence with a semicolon between clauses, totally capable of hurting men twice their size,
envisioning a plump little man being hurled like a bowling ball out the open door: the others
sitting at the bar.
What in blazing hell did you say?
Something about your little sister Dorsey I think?
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Something about a hog eating my little sister?
Bent backs bent back erect, pigpooed boots solesmacking the floor, fleshflabby arms
pushing hogbellies from the counter: Fred, Dorsey and Barney.
Well you know writer, I think we done gone out of our dog gone way here over the dog
gone years to try to make you and your missus members of our dog gone community.
Sure, and my dog licks my face because he loves me, not because Im salty.
I mean you dont go to church at all but thats okay, and you dont come round to many
functions, but thats okay too, and you obviously cant drink for shit, accepted you as one of us
sowbuggerers, and so I think we done every right by you.
Sure, and the Pope blesses me every night in his prayers.
And so when you come into our bar, I think you should show us all a dick little more
respect.
Sure, and my penis is getting longer as I get older.
You may have an education and may have a do nothing but think job at the university
and all such, but we are proud of who we are and dont deserve to feel like we aint as good as
anyone else.
Sure, I was the smartest kid in the sixth grade just cuz my mother said so.
It is all about respect, and just as we are here respecting one of our purely deceased
friends and whoopee buddies, we expect you to respect us and our place.
Sure, and you havent eaten too many pumpkin whoopee pies.

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But maybe it is time you picked your flakey nose and soft little ass off that stool and
went back home-ity home to Momm-y before you vomit-y vomit old man.
Sure, and I want psoriasis where everyone can see it, why not my nose?
Maybe Mommy misses her little boy.
Sure, and I change my underwear every day.
Or maybe we should just help you, being the good guys we are, help throw your ass out
on your fucking trotters in the fucking snow before you stink up our bar with your shit words!
Sure, and I dont have bad breath. Sure, and I always look both ways. Sure, and I always
waited for her to come first. Sure, and I always leave the seat down. Sure and I never stole
money from my fathers wallet. Sure, and I wish I were Jewish or at least a practicing Jew. Sure,
and I believe that democracy is the sign of a stable new world order. Sure, and I never cursed an
Arab taxi driver. Sure, and I am getting happier as I get older. Sure, and I always worry about
the size of my carbon footprint. Sure, and I wont ever say anything like that again. Sure, and I
know life is a box of chocolates. Sure, and I want me some. Sure and I get it man. Sure, and the
other side is in fact greener. Sure, and whose brother? Sure, and I have always been more than I
could have been. Sure, and the last time is never the best. Sure, and sharks dont really like the
taste of human flesh. Sure, and I brush my teeth every day. Sure, and clowns deserve our
applause. Sure, and when you are away I will be faithful. Sure, and you believe that. Sure, I get
my own drift thank you. Sure, and another one bites the dust. Sure, and beauty sleep works. Sure,
and my asshole is a virgin. Sure, and I will drink to that. Sure, and I know the words to the
pledge of allegiance. Sure, and I care. Sure, and who told you to enter this fray? Sure, who told
you to be so smart? Sure, and who told you to stick your fingers in this pie? Sure, and who told
you to give a damn?
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Blurry, red and woozy eyed, swaying, tilting and lilting, bellied and jellied, taking the
karaoke mic in one hand, facing the skeptical and somewhat disdainful stares of his audience,
prepared to break the ice, the frozen eyes: the writer
Whew. Tough crowd tonight. So tell me what do you guys do for fun here? Eat nails.
Kill things. Listen to your fat grow, your skin stretch? This is it right? Ha! Thought so. Hey I
know what its like. I know small towns. I love small towns. Grew up in one myself. So I know
all about it. Nah, Im no stranger to small towns. Grew up in one just like this one here. Small
clot of rusty brick warehouses on the river, some steepled churches, clapboard houses wedged in
here and there. A train running through the center of town like a zipper on a pair of old tattered
jeans. Yea, like that one? No real architecture here, unless you think ugly square buildings with
absolutely no character is an American form of architecture. Your houses were all bought
where? Out of a Sears Roebuck catalogue, right? Yep. Ordered off a sheet that you mailed in a
hundred years ago and a few weeks later your house shows up in a bunch of crates. You get
together with the neighbors and put that sucker up one Saturday night. Now that is what I call
fun. Still do that? No? Too bad. I liked that idea of fun. What else do you do? Fish? Any of
you fish for catfish? Yea? Some big suckers down there right? I think those are just stories
myself. Heard them all when I was a kid. Big old seven foot long catfish, always had a name
like Old Sam or Present Danger or King Cat or something like that. Would suck your skin off if
it got a hold of you. But you guys like your catfish sandwiches alright dont you? Yea good
stuff. Tell me, does all the crap that makes this river as filthy as a New York sewer contribute to
the taste of your catfish sandwiches? Just wondering. Can almost walk across the river
sometimes its so dirty. Remember when we went swimming when I was a kid, didnt have
bathing suits back then, remember that. Right, just went in with your knickers, your underwear,

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your whities. Well one dunk in that river and you were wearing brownies. Remember?
Nowadays mother wont let their kids drink tap water let alone put a toe in that river. How
different things are now, huh? Back when I was a kid we didnt worry about things like pollution
or poisons or electrical charges or dynamite or asbestos or flammable liquids or any of that shit.
Those were exactly what made life as a kid fun. Thats right. Remember? Fun was nearly killing
each other or dying yourself. Remember the things we used to make? Tire swings, ropes that we
held onto and sung out over some ravine or cliff. We never died doing that. Go carts that we
would build out of pieces of wood and spare bicycle parts and race down hills at eighty miles an
hour. Things would start to shudder and fall apart halfway down. Never died at that either. We
would build tunnels under ground and take our lunches in there and eat with candles, while kids
stomped on the ground overhead trying to make the walls cave in on us. We survived that.
Swimming was one way you could die, well not just in the river but remember swimming in
those ponds? Those cesspool things full of muck and fertilizers and who knows what else?
Jump in one of those ponds and you could find a refrigerator down there, a car maybe, probably
some dead animals, who knows, a bunch of old paint cans, car batteries, it all went into the soup
that we swam in. Mothers didnt just let us swim in those poison pits, they told us to. Get out
Bill and go swimming in the pond, you are driving me crazy, go swim in the pond and dont
come back for until its been dark for a few hours. Playing in the dark, remember that? No kid
gets to play in the dark now unless its in his closet or under some covers. Us? We ran around
the neighborhoods until midnight. We used to play in the woods and fields at night, remember?
Used to take our little brothers out and get them lost in the middle of the darkness. Dad would
tell us to watch out for the boogey man and we would get all scared and hed come in and see us
all sitting in the living room and hed say why are you in here why arent you playing in the dark,

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and wed say because we are afraid of the boogeyman. Get outside, my dad would yell, get out
and play in the dark or I will show you the boogey man alright. Can you imagine telling your
kids that now? Would you ever let your kids do that now? Fuck no. All full of molesters and
druggies and kidnappers and all sorts of riff raff out there now. Firecrackers were another thing
we did for fun. We had firecrackers back then. Not these little playthings that you see now, but
real stuff. Cherry bombs, black cats, M80s. Remember those things? I love those things. And
wed blow up everything with those things: cans, bottles, whatever. Never lost an eye or nothing.
Remember playing the game of who could hold the cherry bomb the longest before throwing it
away? One of us eventually would have the thing blow up in our fingers. Happened all the time.
Yea, happened to you too? Right, that was fun. Wasnt it? The good old days. We did all sorts
of shit you would never let your kids do today. We played in toxic dumps, breathed asbestos,
lived in homes filled with cigarette smoke, washed our hands with gasoline, played with old car
batteries. Any of us any worse for any of that? Hell no. I dont think so. We tromped barefoot
through pig shit and chicken shit and horse shit. We didnt always wash our hands before dinner.
We ate all kinds of terrible shit like fried fat and headcheese, all that gravy made out of grease,
remember all that gravy on all them potatoes. Meatloaf. Porkchops. Bacon. Scalloped potatoes,
green bean casserole, corn chowder. Never enough cream or cheese or butter in everything. Had
to put on another glob before you ate it. Did it hurt us any? I dont think so. We are all fine
right?
Nodding, bobbing asleep: Mason.
No, we didnt have the extracurricular activities back then that we do now. We didnt
even have half the sports to play like you do now. I mean we had our summer sandlot league,
but nothing like today where you travel all over the country playing in week long tournaments.
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Hell we didnt even have uniforms. T-shirts with our team name on it. The Spaniels, the
Bumblebees, or something stupid like that. That shirt looked like shit after about the second
game, but you had to wear it for the entire summer. We all looked like a bunch of dust rats by
the end of the seasons. Back then things were different werent they? So different. Nothing was
organized for kids. Today everything is organized around kids. Lessons for this, lessons for that.
Programs and clubs and organizations. We had none of that. We had hammers, nails, knives and
whatever junk we could find to play with. No drugs back then though. Kids all into drugs these
days. No pot when I was a kid, certainly no coke or horse or any shit like that. Snuff and
chewing tobacco was what we did to abuse substances back then. Remember. Sniffing glue.
Smoke some cigarettes. That is what you did to be bad. Oh sure, we drank, sure. But that was
usually the vinegar wine our aunt was making. Remember that stuff? Had to put in about eight
cups of sugar to make it palatable. Drank it and then got sick, threw up for three days. But wed
do it again of course. Of course.
Looking at Fred, looking at Barney, looking at Rusty: Dorsey.
What else you do for fun here? Anything? Play Bingo? Yea, Bingo is big here aint it.
Used to be bigger I bet before them Indian casinos came along. Now you all go blow your
pension and security checks on the slots. Dont you? Cmon, admit it. You aint leaving
nothing to that grandson or granddaughter of yours. Hell no. You got your slots and we all know
how fun it is to sit for eight hours in front of a video screen with a bucket full of quarters in our
lap, punching those buttons, waiting like one of Pavlovs dog for a bell to ring, drooling until a
few coins fall. Yea thats a blast. What else? Work? Come on, work by definition aint fun.
Work is the opposite of fun. No, listen the only reasons you say that what do you do?
Unemployed? Oh, well then work might be fun for you compared to sitting around feeling
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helpless, useless and seeing your life waste away. But no really, work is only fun to you guys
because you have been brought up with that heavy Calvinistic indoctrination that life is work,
work is good, so work is fun. Its bullshit. You have been brainwashed. Look at you, just look
at your bodies. How many pieces you have missing? How many fingers, toes, earlobes, teeth
whatever have you lost while working? A bunch right? Look at your bodies, all hunched over
and twisted like you been pulling the same levers or lifting the same blocks every day of your
life. Your bodies are what you used to do. Youre deformed now. Ugly as a punch press. Work
aint fun. Nothing fun about work. Work kills us. Kills your spirit. It aint going to save your
spirit. Why should anyone believe that? Makes no sense. It is just another way we were
brainwashed into working. Thats all. Every read Animal Farm? Its a book. Its not about a real
farm. Oh, so then you dont want to read it because it is not about a real farm? Ok, I am going
to skip my jokes related to Animal Farm. So what else? Drink? Yep, know that one. Been there
done that. Am here, am doing it obviously. So right now I am having just as much fun as you
are. Maybe more. Cuz I am up here and you are down there and I got the mic. Hows that?
Why would I get down? Are you going to come up and take over? You think you are funnier
than me? You are saying anyone is funnier than me? Where is this anyone. Bring him up here.
I always do better when there is some competition, a little spit flying between me and a fellow
comedian. Where is he? Thought so. Anyone is the same as nobody. Aint he?
Standing up, walking away, exuding a long shiiiiiiiiit, an anyone and nobody: Rusty.
So where was I? Lost my train of thought. Why do we call it a train of thought by the
way? One thought is not really connected to another, thoughts dont come into mind in such an
orderly fashion, like cars on a train, connected tightly to each other, one after another after
another. Thoughts are like, thoughts are like if you dont know this, in the comedic life what I
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am doing right now is called reaching for a line. I lost my place in my piece and so I am
reaching for the next line. Kind of like reaching for a life preserver, especially if this goes on too
long. Natives get restless.
Fingers thumping the bartop, shoes tapping restlessly, heads nodding in angst, natives
getting restless: the drunks.
Ah yes, small towns is what we were talking about. So you see, I must have convinced
you that I know a thing or two about small towns. One thing about small towns is you all know
each other. Thats a good thing about small towns. You actually get to know people. Everyone
knows each other, knows everything about each other. I personally view that as annoying and
suffocating. Its true. I feel nauseated right now thinking that some of you guys might know
certain things about me. It is bad enough that you know me at all, but to think that you might
know some of the things I do at night, or what my habits are, or what I say to my wife, what
kinds of movies I like to watch makes me shudder. Fortunately I am one of those guys you dont
talk about, dont care about. I am one of those guys that is on the other side of the railroad
tracks, although there are no real tracks between you and me. But we got some distance between
us. I know that. Small towns though always have a set of railroad tracks and I find it fascinating
that there is always someone living on the other side of those tracks. You know what I mean.
You know what I mean, right? There is always a good and bad side to those railroad tracks. You
all live on the good side and all the others, well they just so happen to live on the other side.
How does that happen? How does a town end up with them two sides to the railroad tracks.
Does a train pull up one day and the whites go this way and the niggers and chinks go that way?
It cant be much more complicated than that, right? You dont mind that I used the n-word do
you? I mean I know it is an unspoken law that you can use the n-word anytime you want when
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you are talking to your buds but not when you are making a public oration. I know small towns
and small towns are racist. They are. You have to admit, you are all racists here. It is not just
the t-shirt you are wearing that has a big red cross on a nappy haired Obama that tells me that.
No. It is not the bumper stickers on your truck that says: Whites have rights, that tells me that.
Nah. Its not just your past histories of throwing bottles at spooks, spitting at kikes or swearing
you will never go to McDonalds again as long as a bunch of Mexican illegal aliens are making
your hamburgers. Nah, none of that is a sign you are racist. Thats all just normal. You see I
know small towns and I know what it means to be normal in a small town, and to be normal in a
small town is to be a fat, beer guzzling bigot. Now, dont get offended. I am talking about
myself as well. Not just you. Look at me, Im fat, Im guzzling beer and Im a bigot. Not proud
of any of those things, but hey thats who I am. Its in my system. Comes out like fart. Could
control it but cant always, you know what I mean? Fortunately no one hears me in the car when
I curse the stupid chink in front of me who is driving too slow or silently shout at a bunch of
nigger kids skate boarding in front of my bank making all that noise wearing those pants down at
their ankles. Keep it to myself. A closet bigot. Thats me. Fags. You hate fags too, huh. Damn
right you hate fags. Me, I dont care about a persons sexual orientation. I aint going to get any
of it anyway, so why should I care? Im not just talking about now, this goes way back with me.
Sex was not a big thing in my life. Well, I take that back, it was a big thing, cuz when I got it it
was a big thing! Truly. A rare and big event. Straight men dont talk much about their penises.
Ah, not really. I mean we call each other dicks and pretend to make allusion or reference to our
genitals but we dont really talk about our dicks. I mean you wouldnt sit here and say to the guy
next to you, hey my dick has a small blister on it today. Or, I wish I had a bigger dick. Or, hey
buddy, hows your dick today? No, ha, we never say things like that. We never talk about the

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size of our dicks. That is the one thing we dont talk about. The guys with big dicks dont like to
brag about it and the guys with the small dicks dont want anyone to know that and so no one
says anything. Fags, I bet, talk about dicks a lot. Dont you think? I think they do. I mean to
be a fag, by definition you have to like dicks, like them a lot and not just your own. I bet fags
have names for their dicks like Colosso, or Bruno or Greta like the dragon. Wonder if some fags
call their dicks by girl names, like Suzy or Bonnie? I bet some do. Is this making you
uncomfortable? Dick talk is pretty uncomfortable for most guys. Me, I have a really small
penis. Its true. Like a little mushroom cap down there. I am not afraid to admit it, but I still say
that with a feeling of shame. Cant help it. We live in a world where big dicks are preferred. I
have had to learn to use my tongue in ways you guys probably never imagined. That was my
only recourse. This is making you even more uncomfortable I can tell. Ok then what about
pussies? Wanta talk about pussies? Silence huh? Nope, guys dont like to talk about that either.
Funny huh? Most guys dont even know the basic anatomy of a pussy. Do you know the
average pussy has out labia, inner labia, a clitoral hood under which the princess clitoris rests,
that it has a hymen, the urethra, that there is a vagina and all sorts of other little interesting things
going on down there? No? All you do is you stick it in and pump right? How many guys here
still have sex with their clothes on? Shirts, pans, boots and socks. Just unzip, climb on top,
wham bam and your done. How many guys think that is great sex? Only a few of you. Thought
so. I cant do it, my dick is too small. I got be completely naked with three pillows under my
butt and then that cowgirl can only move a little ways like this. Ok, listen, this part of the routine
is funnier with a mixed crowd. I had no idea this was going to be a group of guys only, a bunch
of loners in here commiserating over a stupid funeral which had too few hotdogs.

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Heads shaking, fists whitening, thighs pushing feet against the ground so that butts slid
from their seats: the drunks.
OK, so how do you know you are living in a small town? How about when you talk
about going into the city you mean you are going to the grocery store. How about when the
population sign only has three digits. How about when you dont have a water tower, but a water
closet. Small towns are racist. They are. You have to be. It is part of that tribe mentality. Your
parents grew up with it, your great grandparents had to live by it. These were little tribes out
here in the middle of nowhere. You had only your own rules and laws. You couldnt be
accepting some other racial groups rules and laws. There was no idea of tolerance back then. It
wasnt just white people against black of Indians. Hell no. It was white people against white
people. Norwegians against Germans against Swedes against Irish. There is always a dog that
gets kicked. Put people together and they will find someone to kick around. Dont need a
different color, although that makes things a lot easier, but a bunch of white people will figure
out which one is the dog of a white person a so that person can get kicked. We were clans, and
we still think and believe that way even though we are told that is bad, that is wrong.
What you dont agree with me?
Smacking the bartop, throwing a stool, chucking a newspaper, letting out a howl, a yell, a
scream to be quiet: dont need to tell ya.
How do you know youre a racist? How about when you say all those people, you
really mean all them kikes, niggers, spics, gooks, japs, chinks, jungle bunnies and beaners out
there? How about when you say some of your best friends are those people by which you
really mean kikes, niggers, spics, gooks, japs, chinks, jungle bunnies and beaners? How about
when multiracial to you means full of vitamins? How about you hate all those people who can
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jump higher than you, run faster than you unless they are on TV on Sunday? How about when
your family tree looks an awful lot like a burning cross?
Like a pack of dogs, like a congress of baboons, like a cackle of hyenas, like a trouble of
wolves, like a rout of coyotes, circling, tightening: the drunks.
Ok, well thank you. You have been great. In your own way. I see my time is up. This
has been fun. See you next time, thanks for coming out everyone. Good night.
Then, through the front door, suddenly and with impeccable timing out of the winter
night, busting in from the cold, clad in black, a black wool coat to the knees, black boots, black
gloves on hands that hung to each side, a black scarf around the neck, a black woolen hat
surrounding a face full of color, full of blood, full of memories long undesired, full of fury: the
writers wife.
Back to the door, squat and rollypollie, head bent to the bartop, dropping the mic,
unmoving, afraid to move, knowing without knowing, endorphins rising above the titer of the
alcohol in his blood, the sounds of heels tromping up his spine: the writer.
Clopping hard across the linoleum floor, removing one leather glove and slapping that
into the gloved palm of the other, looking around at eyes that look up at her then down then up
then down like bobble heads on the dashboard after hitting a pothole, sniffing the air with no
signs of pleasure or pleasantness, scanning the walls and shelves and countertops and barebreasted motorcycle straddling calendar girls of the man cave with no indicators of admiration or
amusement, with no real signs of repulsion other than for the old man balled up on a stool in
front of her: the writers wife.

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Straightening up, not looking back, pushing the empty beer glass to the inner edge of the
bar, putting hands flat on the countertop, lifting, buttocks rising, legs extending, feet feeling for
the floor, stumbling, falling, grunting: the writer.
Slapping his wipecloth quickly across his shoulder, straightening up, advancing a step
towards the old man, eyes wide and mouth open, uttering the first two words of the intended
question that never would be completed: Rusty.
Uh, can I give you a hand
Back at their stools, silenced and bowed in disgrace: the others.
Grabbing his arm, helping him recover, looking across at the other eyes looking up in
sideways glances in hidden stares as she says through gritted teeth: the writers wife.
Yea he needs help alright
Shuffling toward the coat rack, bowed and shivering, lifting his eyes towards the darkness
of the womans wrath and despite that wrath in daring, in whispered tone, in stupidity, in the
bungled drawl of the permanently defeated: the writer.
I owe him three bucks
No hes fine.
No, hes not. Get dressed.
First his scarf, then his coat, then one glove, then another, then the earmuffs, then a
beanie, buttoned, zipped, wrapped and bundled, he shuffles out first, back out the door, into the
night, disappearing into the cold: the writer.

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Replacing the removed glove, tightening the woolen hat on her head, dark as the night, a
plane of deepest shadow, filling the doorway, melting into the cold of winter, the black of night,
leaving behind a look of unfathomable loss, a glimpse of profound disappointment, of something
forever lost, pulling the door closed behind her, gently: the writers wife.

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TIME

Earlier in the day.

How much longer?

Not much. So tell us again where you had been before all this happened?
The man in the chair rubbed the back his neck with his hand, a gesture of boredom, or
irritation, pulling at the tightened muscles as if ringing out the answers this man and others had
asked. A young man, with a slim, muscular physique, he had light hair and light skin, in contrast
to the dark, penetrating eyes that were recognizable to everyone who knew or suspected. He had
a scar that began below his hairline, crossed the bridge of his nose and creased his right cheek to
the very corner of his mouth.

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I already done that.
Yes I know.
You could have just recorded it.
We dont do things that way.
So why you asking me again?
Flint, its routine. You know that. Got to get the story right. Tell us.
The man asking the questions was standing although it was clear that he was tired of
standing, would rather have been sitting down, he was a large man with a belly that hung far over
his belt, fleshy breasts and arms the size of many a mans thighs. He was sweating and seemed
to be faring the worse of the two, even though he was the interrogator. His face was reddened,
jowls unshaved, his hair thin and wet with sweat. He had never had to do this before, not with
someone like the man he was interrogating, the Sheriffs son.
At Rustys.
Drinking?
Nope.
Just staying at Rustys and not taking a single drink?
Nope, watching the game for a bit, wasting some time.
Who was there with you?
Dorsey, Tyson.
Rusty?
Sure, Rusty too.
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Another man was in the room. He sat with one leg on a table, smoking a cigarette,
seeming to listen but not to watch, looking at the floor, his hand, at a mark that seemed to interest
him from time to time in the table top. This man was long and thin in back and limbs, birdlike,
greyhound like, with an extraordinary long neck, a pointy head with greased back black hair, a
long scapular nose. A weasel was what many called him, a ferret, when they felt compelled, but
few paid him much mind.
Did you see Flint at Rustys, Fred?
The ferret shook his head, looking at the tabletop.
Flint, last we checked it seems Rusty dont remember you being there either.
Well, like I said, I just stopped in to grab part of the game. Didnt order nothing. Guess
youre going to have to check with Dorsey.
What about Tyson?
Or him too.
Tyson is in Cleveland, Flint.
He is? So you are gaming with me huh? Well, Dorsey will tell you.
What about Rusty?
He might, but he might not know.
But hes the bartender.
So?
He may have been too busy to notice. All this commotion puts a strain on a guys mind
you know. Time and stuff gets all confused.
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Seems so. So then what?
Then I left.
And that is when you come across all this?
Thats right.
The men were in an office, the young man named Flint seated in front of a desk that was
cluttered with newspapers, scattered paperwork, car magazines, some fouled parts from
automobile or tractor engines, and about a dozen snowglobes from various states of the union.
The detective wiped his brow as he looked out the window. Next to the window was a bookcase,
each shelf filled with masks, masks made of wood, papermache, some plastic. Grotesque and
comical. He picked one up and looked through the eyeslits into the yard outside, then turned and
looked in the direction of the ferret, which elicited a snicker. He put the mask back, placed both
hands on the windowsill, his backside thin and awkwardly small compared to the tremendous
belly that fell forward from his hips.
Mind telling us that again Flint so we know we got it right.
Sure. So as I told yens both, I came out of Rustys and was walking home when I heard
some screams, a woman screaming, coming from over by the railroad overpass. Sounding like
she was hurt or getting hurt.
But this you did not know, not yet.
No, course not. I hadnt seen anything yet.
Of course. Go on.
So I runs over that direction and the screams were coming more and more and then they
stopped but still I had heard enough to know where they were coming from and so I ran across
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that plot of land over by Daveys garage and down to the underpass and there I seen them both.
He had already beaten her pretty good.
Who did you see?
Jeri Lynn, of course.
And who was she with?
Walker of course.
And he was the one who was beating her?
Yes like I said.
The fat man walked around the desk, his legs rubbed fiercely it seemed at the thigh by the
sound each step created. He picked up a snowglobe and shook it.
Look, what do you know its snowing in Arizona.
The ferret smiled crookedly, then looked away.
You saw him hit her.
Yes, well no, but he had a hold of her, like he was going to hit her, like he had done been
hitting her and was going to hit her again.
He had a hold of her.
Yea around the neck and shoulders like this.
Flint attempted to demonstrate a hold or a posture but without effect and certainly
without clarification. The detective looked at the ferret and the two exchanged a glance that
could have meant something, could have meant nothing.
But he didnt hit her.
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WALKER
He did I just didnt see him do it.
Ok, then what?
So I shouted out to Walker to stop and he stopped, but he didnt let her go, he just held
her like that in that same way and I was thinking she might be dead as she did not make a sound
now and so I picked up a piece of iron from the ground and waved it at Walker and shouted for
him to let her go or I would hit him. He let her go then but he still had his back to me and I was
thinking what kind of man was this, to beat this woman like this, a pregnant woman at that, and
then to be confronted with someone who saw his crime and not even be afraid enough to turn and
face me as if he were willing to take my blow as if he were willing to be found as if that was his
plan all along. But then he did turn around, real slow like he turned and I could see her blood all
over him, all the way to his face, smeared across this cheek and covering his hands. He held out
his arms as he turned, at first I thought he was surrendering to me, but as he turned he began to
lift those arms and his face came around so that I could see it full on and in those eyes was the
darkest stare I had ever before witnessed, the most evil eyes I had ever known, and I could swear
there was even a small smile on his face, as if he were proud of what he had down, as if he were
in pleasure at this womans torture and was in even greater pleasure now knowing he was caught
and would so be tortured himself. This is a sick man, Detective.
And tell us again why you let him go.
I had no way to deal both with him and with Jeri Lynn. Listen, why are you doing this to
me? Why here in my Dads office? Why arent you going out and getting Walker for Christs
sake? Who the hell knows what that psycho is up to.
Cuz your Daddy wants to hear your story first.

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Then why aint he here asking it?
Cuz I told you, he knows fathers cant always hear the truth when it comes from their
sons. He wants to make sure he knows the truth before he does what hes gotta do.
He needs to catch Walker and string the bastard up, thats what hes gotta do. Or let me
do it.
For the first time, the man called Flint seemed to grow small. The fat man noticed it, and
maybe the ferret noticed it too, although the ferret with eyes small and set close may have
noticed less than more. They both looked at him and looked down at him, as if looking suddenly
at a man grown smaller, grown tinier right before their eyes. The man called Flint looked away
from those two sets of eyes and continued.
I didnt have my gun with me, I was off duty just then, being a Sunday night and all. I
didnt have my phone and knew that if I did not attend to Jeri Lynn why she might die. And I
told Walker that he was under arrest and he just smiled more. I shouted to him that he was my
prisoner and that he had to do what I said. He smiled more. And I shouted at him and said I was
telling him one last time to sit over against the wall and to sit on his hands until I could bind
them and go get help for this girl and get someone to come pick him up.
And then?
And then he just laughed. A terrible laugh that was. Frightened me like I cant tell you.
And then?
And then he walked away.
Walked, didnt run did he?
No, he took his time you could say. Just like his name.
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The Detective didnt hesitate to change the line of his questioning.
So Flint, what did you think of Jeri Lynn?
What do you mean?
I dont know. You knew her right?
Yea, like most everyone.
Did you ever talk with her much?
Sometimes yea.
Ever talk with her alone?
If no one else were around and I was talking to her, I suppose. Why? Whats this about?
If someone were to say you knew Jeri Lyn better than some, what would you say?
Shes young Walkers gal.
So if someone said something?
Id say that person had a gripe against me or something.
You got a grudge against Walker.
By right I suppose.
Hows that?
Cuz what he done.
To you.

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The young man named Flint returned a glare to the fat man, then relaxed his body with a
slight roll of his head, there was a visible limpness in his legs and arms, he closed his eyes, took
a breath.
No.
What about the young Walker?
What about him?
The fat man finally sat his thin ass on the corner of a desk. Large splotches of wetness
showed from beneath each of his breasts, dark circles under each armpit.
Is it true?
What?
The two of you might be related?
Fuck no.
Seems to be common
The phone rang on the desk. The fat man looked at the ferret who shrugged his thin
shoulders. With reluctance, the fat man picked it up.
Yes, Sheriff
Is that my dad?
Yea, almost done. I think so. Yep. OK.
The fat man put the phone down, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his brow, his
cheeks, his jowl and the mighty folds of his massive fatty neck.
Damn heat in here. So Flint, again, where did he go?
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Dont know, towards West Avenue Road. But I didnt watch him none. I had the girl to
attend to.
You forgot something Flint.
Whats that?
The fat man displayed the handkerchief he had in his hand, let it fall into his other hand.
Last time you told us this, you said that Walker had a white handkerchief in his pocket.
He did, thats right.
And what did he do with that.
He wiped off his face.
Wiped off what from his face.
Some sweat I guess.
The fat man held up his handkerchief by the corners, waving it as if tempting a bull.
See any blood on this?
Huh?
You said he wiped off some blood from his face.
Could have been blood, it was dark, not much light from that bulb in that underpass.
You said before that he wiped that blood off his face cuz you had hit him across the nose
with the piece of iron.
Yea, thats true.
Its true you hit him?

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Yea, like I said.
But you didnt say that this second time.
Just forget I suppose. A lot of things going on Detective.
Sure are.
What did my Dad want?
He wants you to go pick up Walker.
About time.
The young man named Flint pushed himself up out of the chair, unable to hide a bone
deep weariness, then gathered his coat and hat and quickly made for the door.
Ill get him, Flint said without looking back.
Im betting you will.
The detective sat down in the chair where the young man named Flint had been sitting.
He kept in silence as he watched through the window, probably following the young mans path
until he could follow no more. Then he let his head roll back and with closed eyes he faced the
ceiling of the Sherriffs office.
Watching the large man laid out in a awkward slumber, the ferret was picking at a tooth,
which to his surprise came out. He held the bloody root between his fingers for a moment before
flicking it beneath the table on which he sat.
So what did you think? the Detective asked without opening his eyes.
You still need me? The ferret asked sucking the new hole in his jaw.
Just would like some of your thoughts, thats all.
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WALKER
Well I aint never worked with a real detective before.
You aint working with me, youre just driving me. And I aint sure Im a what youd call
real detective.
Seems so to me.
Most thing in life are done with attitude. All that matters.
Well, Im not sure what to say then.
It takes time to get to the truth. You may discover that the truth was always there right
before you, right from the beginning, but it always takes time to see that. You know what I
mean?
Not rightly.
You like this kid Flint?
Not always.
You know this Walker fellow?
Sure, everyone knows him.
Whys that?
On account he is kinda strange, I guess.
That will make you known. His son is the boy to this poor girl, Jeri Lynn.
Seems so.
Boyfriend girlfriend.
Yep.

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Even though she was raped, beaten and was impregnated with another mans child?
Most of us have scratched our heads on that one ourselves.
You think that could be why Walker did this?
I aint a person to be giving that kind of opinion, Detective. That would seem out of line
with Walker, with whats I know.
But is it possible?
Dont know sir.
You know Flint it seems pretty well.
Sure, I have known him since we were kids
But you dont like him much.
Like I said. Hes got a chip on him.
Funny, he dont look nothing like the Sheriff.
Well, Detective, some say I look strange too.
Yes, yes.
What are you getting at Detective?
Dont know. But sometimes a man likes to look at his son and see himself in that face.
Gives a man hope that some things that were not done can be done, that some things that were
not done right can be righted, that some things can be forgotten. If you look in that face and see
a future there, thats your future. Some men may need that. Just to wipe away the doubts, you
know what I mean. What do you think?

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Sheriff is probably glad to look into a different face than his. But I aint smart enough to
be giving opinions on these matters.
Hmmm. You are probably smarter than you think.
I would never had picked up on the handkerchief that Flint missed. That was good. That
could get him dont you think?
Nah, but something else will if its him.
Whats that?
Seems he paid someone with some bloody bills.
Flint did?
The fat man nodded, stretched out his massive arms, fists balled at each end.
Who does Flint look like to you? His mother?
Nope not his Mom for sure.
Who do you think?
Well, Detective, I knows what youre asking and I cant be answering that. Nobody
around here is going to be willing to answer that. That aint a topic for discussion in this town, if
you know what I mean.
Not sure I do.
The fat man got up from the chair with considerable difficulty. He waddled to the coat
rack and grabbed his jacket and scarf.
Im going to take a walk around town. Talk with some folks.
Need me?
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WALKER
Nah. But Freddy, tell me, once I see Walker, will I know?
Know what sir?
The answer to my question, what I put to you.
Cant say sir. But its probable.

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Afternoon

St. Matthew wrote that a city on a hill shall be the light of the world, that it would be seen
by all, that it could not hide. The city of B sat on not one but seven hills which served as
beacons to those who traveled by river, rail or road, a place that served passersby who did just
that, passed on by. For B was a place where few people came to visit, where even fewer chose to
stay. Despite the beauty of its hillside forests of redcedar, ironwood and shagbark hickory, glens
of silver maple and riverbed pawpaws, its surrounding plains of wild grass and well-kept
farmlands, the steadying presence of the slow, heavy river, this town was honored by none other
than its own citizens as being as ugly and misshapen as an infestation of warts. History was not
any kinder. A hundred years earlier, people described B as a wicked fortress defended by ungodly
souls who wore guns as comfortably as slippers, drank themselves into stupors, a place that must
fall to the inevitable, gathering, ungathered armies of Christ.
Whenever the city of B was set forth in exposition, it was most often described for what it
was not instead of what it was. For instance, someone writing at the turn of the century
remarked that despite its many faults, it was not a place filled with ignorant, cold blooded
ruffians or plotting backwoodsmen, although presumably plenty of those species abounded.
Someone else said, in a way perhaps that could be interpreted to apply a small charm, that it had
no society, no amusements and wants none. How quaint. Even those who were prone to crow

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about its natural bounty, its many wild animals waiting to be shot, its flowering trees and its
abundant soils for growing crops, even these complimentary writers were quick to add that this
was not a place for the timid as it was afflicted by floods that covered most of downtown in the
spring, that it was visited by ruthless tornados that would rip off that beauty as if it were a thin
mask, and for measure that was followed by long relentless winters of ice, snow and wind that
was so harsh all life fled the plains.

Some early travelers simply and perhaps honestly

commented that although the town of B had few real qualities to be desired, it was not that bad.
Some say that the town of B defined itself during these earlier times when the civilized
cities so many were fleeing were to its east and the allure of the frontier was several murky
horizons to its west. For the most part the town looked and smelled like a neglected waystation,
a polluted point of passage in the midpoint of an unfortunate journey, the levee was a littered
shambles of junk and garbage, streets were ankle deep in night slop, horse dung, cow manure
and hog dirt, alleys were piled with broken packing cases, shattered crates, empty bottles, cast off
bones from butcher shops, spoiled fruit, rotting wheat, corn and mead from livery stables and
grain dealers. For a while B was in fact called Turd Town. Mainly by those who lived there of
course.
News, religion and money found refuge here but only briefly. It was a time when
newspapers disappeared as quickly as the pages could be blown down to the river, when
churches appeared overnight in mushroom-like tents then vanished the next day as if trampled by
a crowd, when businesses opened and closed as fast as it took to take down or hang a new sign,
when soldiers marched into the bar district of Lowertown staying barely long enough for a drink
and to leave their infections in the laps of a few local gals, when pigs and cattle loped through
town only to drink from rainfilled ruts in the road and pollute all public areas with manure, when
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a circus stopped only because its hippopotamus fell from a bridge into the river. It was a time of
paddlewheel steamboats and gold rushes when profiteers stopped by to make a quick buck and
then move on, leaving B just a little bit poorer than when they had arrived.
Not to say the city of B had not had its chance, it in fact once boasted of promise, it was
after all on a major river, and in its city center three of the nations central railroads once crossed;
some thought the town could have grown to be as large and prosperous as Cincinnati or
Minneapolis, or even Chicago. But the fact is and history will always have to deal with this in
one way or another, that it did not. Life here was a weary treadmill for most. And this pitiable
nature of B would not change over the years and so would continue to shape the very physicality
of the town as well as the inner lives of its inhabitants to this very day.
Festus Quinn was a man who, like many men of innate but poorly fostered intelligence,
believed that he had been condemned to walk the earth at the wrong time, during the wrong
epoch, that in the same way a child may be born with a club foot or deafness, he had been
unblessed by being dropped naked and helpless into a time that was not correctly his. The
Preacher liked to sit outside on the vestibule of his church home where he could look out over
the hills and valley and river plain and imagine a landscape that looked much the same for
Griffin Sykes. A man of uncertain origin, Sykes came here around the turn of the century as a
minister and an untrained mendicant, a not unusual combination of talents, providing sermons
for the soul and elixirs for any and all illnesses, catering to the people who were not only too
poor to die and be buried but far too poor to become sick. He was their doctor, their healer, their
savior and, more often than not, their merciful executioner.
It was out of these dreary, forgotten times over a century ago that the stories of one
Griffin Sykes took substance. A casual remark from his Grandmother revealed to Festus Quinn
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the notion of this mythical man, a tall and redbearded man who rode his circuit through town to
harangue crowds gathered for Gospel revivals, to broadcast his Calvinistic message from a
wooden crate to the hordes of the unwashed; the Preacher imagined not without a little
transference that this man was one of the brave, perhaps foolhardy souls who with their voice
sought to fill the empty corners of the frontier with the word of Christ, who extolled the Bible as
the sole rule of Faith and who of course vilified whenever possible the Catholic Church. He was
your great great grandfather, his grandmother had said, or something akin to that. And so Sykes
became something more akin to Festus Quinn than a man lost to stories, in the way that Sykes
offered more than Gods grace and the miracle of salvation to his patients, for he was a man of
medicine as well as spirit.
Back in Sykes real time and Festus true time, the city of B was a way station not only
for the frontier travelers but for the diseases they brought with them: cholera, typhoid fever,
smallpox, and the deadly diphtheria, germs that would cause more deaths than the battles with
the Indians during these times. To profit from this misery, itinerant medicine men arrived and
worked under conditions as vague as the granular fog that covered the river which brought them
and carried them away. Like the others, Sykes had no medical education but back then that did
not matter, there were few alternatives for the poor and what he had in the way of experience and
street training so to speak made him as competent as any university trained doctor and his
devotion to the scriptures granted him extra authority over the licensed physician armed only
with pills and leeches. He imagined this cowboy medicine man carrying in his satchels the
recipes to make people puke and purge, the vials of mercury for syphilis, laudanum for pain. In
his pockets he might have the scalpels, probes, scissors, small saw and catheters to perform any
needed surgery, and the needles of various sizes and linen thread to suture off his handiwork.

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The Preacher nourished his image of this itinerant Gospel peddler hawking both nostrum
paters and nostrum remediums, salves and salvation from street corners with well-honed and
spellbinding talent. From his bag he imagined Sykes could offer a plethora of remedies: MugWumps Specific for venereal disease, Lydia Pinkhams Herb Medicine, Kickapoo Indian Sagwa
to provide relief in five minutes from dyspepsia, gastritis and cancer, Dr. Kilmers Swamp Root
for malaria, Dr. Batemans Pectoral Drops, Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People, Bonnores
Electro Magnetic Bathing Fluid for epilepsy and female complaints, Hamlins Wizard Oil, Shou
Wu Chih to turn gray hair black, the Vegetable Universal Pill for balance of blood humor and
love, and Dr. Sibleys Solar Tincture which was able to restore life in the event of sudden death,
among other marvels. He apparently also sold, on at least one occasion, Enzyte, a natural male
enhancement that claimed to be the only ointment made with the rare herb Suffragium asotas,
which the makers translated as better sex, but was ungrammatical Latin for refuge of the
dissipated.

He believed in his grandmothers stories that described Sykes not as a charlatan or

flimflam man, but as a respected minister of souls and flesh who preached on the levee and laid
down the law to the sinners of the lower reaches of this lowly reaching town. He was, the
Preacher was told, so well respected that when he spoke on Sunday, the saloonkeepers closed
their doors to show respect and to allow good attention to be paid.
This man, Griffin Sykes, was too gifted to stay a peddler long. He rose in stature with his
street knowledge of medicine, his deft, steady hands, his clear eyes, his swift tongue and most
importantly his deep understanding of the Gospel. He went on to become one of the most
respected medical practitioners in the city, making more than most doctors. The Preachers
grandmother gave him one of Sykes daily ledgers, a small notebook smeared with dirt and who
knows what kinds of secretions in which he recorded the surgeries and preparations that he

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provided along with the prices that his patients paid. In that book, deciphering the crude but
surprisingly coherent handwriting, the Preacher learned that Sykes charged one lady three dollars
for treating her cholera, dressing a bullet wound cost five dollars, child birth was ten. In one
passage he noted that he would not treat a man for syphilis unless the man paid him thirty dollars
in advance. It is assumed that the man did not pay and so received no treatment.
But what was most compelling to the Preacher about this fascinating, driven and
ultimately very successful man, was that he gathered this wealth to fuel a vision. When he was
ready, he quit his medical practice and started a church where he administered to the poor for
free. The parallels between this man and the Preachers life were uncanny, as if the spiritual
drive that guided this man Sykes had been embedded into the Preacher through a process of
metempsychosis, perhaps only to be squandered there, as life was often squandered in B.
If nothing else, the Preacher, a man who, perhaps guided by this transplanted spirit, had
begun early to take on life as a purposeful journey, a journey that was winding down now, these
being the twilight years of anyones time on this planet, a time best used to collect what disparate
bits and pieces of experience, knowledge, and yes even wisdom one had either ignored or simply
neglected, winding the years into tight balls like string or secure within jars, covered with wax,
caps screwed down snug. If nothing else, he wondered how he had in fact made it to this place,
how he had come this far, how he had traveled in what could only be a circle as he was, as far as
he could tell, right back where he had started any number of years ago.
Festus Quinn was a Lutheran priest who took to the pulpit every Saturday night and twice
on Sunday to deliver a sermon to his flocks, that thinning audience of shuffling, bent and
otherwise less than enthusiastic parishioners who supported him, or, as he would say, kept him
alive beyond his own wishes.
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His church was in fact architecturally a cathedral with its two spans of the cross; entering
from the front door into the narthex, the view of the altar was unobstructed. Built in 1849, it was
patterned off the original church of Luther. The nave with its central aisle led to the chancel and
focused the attention upon the altar. The chancel was symbolic of the head of Christ and the
nave, His body. The vine in the cornice of the nave was the symbol of the Savior and was based
upon John 15:1 I am the True Vine. Over the front door the vine appears again, along with the
shield of the Holy Trinity. The nave was a near endless ninety nine feet in length, the exact
length as Martin Luthers church in Germany. However, the Preacher measured it one day and
discovered it was 96 feet, not 99, a difference of three feet probably due to some architects or
contractors ideological priority of waste-note-want-not over formal beauty, numeric-spiritual
congruity and historical integrity, and so the guy redesigned it so that it would use exactly twelve
8-foot sections of studs, posts, plywood and no more, which back then, the Preacher
begrudgingly admitted, may have mattered. He didnt really know. As in Luthers original
church, here each pew has a carved symbol in the wooden panel telling its own story. Where
three petals are carved in the form of a fleur de lis recalls the belief in the Triune God, the
acceptance of the virgin birth of the Savior. Where four main divisions are shown, these are the
four major prophets, four gospel writers and Jesus command to carry the message of love to the
four corners of the earth. Where six divisions are noted, this is significant of the six days of
creation, of the six hours Jesus spent on the cross and of the six attributes of God, namely:
power, majesty, wisdom, love, mercy and justice.
The exterior of the church was constructed from large bricks cut from white flagstone, the
steeple covered in green oxidized copper and on top of that the burnished steel crucifix Walker
had welded into place that stormy night years ago. The home they gave him was a modest, red

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brick structure next to the church proper, although on the corner closest to the church, builders
had grafted the same white flagstone into portions of the walls, as if the small home had
contracted a kind of psoriasis or other surface affliction from the larger white house of God.
In any case, at ninety nine or ninety six feet the nave provided a capacity to seat more
than two hundred worshippers, but never had he seen even half that number at any one time, a
number that had in fact dwindled further over the last few decades, dwindled on account of the
attrition in this town overall, the youth leaving this dead and desiccated town for a place that
would support the living, and dwindling because only the hard of hearing, he often good
naturedly joked, could bear to hear his sermons. These Sundays, if he had a few dozen at any
given sermon, he had a good crowd. That ninety six feet was a long distance to walk, a lot of
room to fill, it made for empty funeral gatherings, it made people feel as if they had fewer friends
than they thought, it seemed wasteful, it made one feel the ship was never going to leave port,
not with so many empty seats, so many unpaid tickets. This church was now more a bingo parlor
than a place of worship, a waiting room for the aged, the shuffling goutsmitten masses, at times
he found himself hallucinating that he was in fact in a bus station, speaking wordlessly to an
audience too tired, to uprooted, too unsure of where they were headed to pay him any heed.
For each sermon his flock would gather not by spreading themselves out evenly through
the pews, but clustering in small familiar knots, forming tribes within this tribe. A few would
arrive thirty minutes or so before the start of service, sit quietly in the silence with heads bowed
in prayer, in sleep perhaps, until the others who had gathered to chat in the parking lot or the
lobby would shuffle in and take their seats, their chattering and wheezes of polite laughter rising
in volume. The same people for the past ten years or more. Dorothy who sat by herself, bent
over by her ninety long years, her head covered in a broad colorful hat hung heavy off her neck
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like a wilted sunflower, she took communion with the same eager smile and wet eyed thank you
as if taking her last. Herman Breugler who always wore a navy jacket, crisp white shirt with
gold links, and a shudder-inducing rug on his bald head, always smiling, making jokes with
neighbors in the pews during all times of the service, the most ready and eager of the ushers
when it came to passing round the collection baskets. The overweight Angie Bickerstaff whose
dresses of the most cheerful patterns covered the abdominal dewlap that swung to her knees, she
was an ardent supporter of the proposed but never instituted church choir and was the one voice
that God could never fail to hear. Patrick Turner, the organist, who was a pharmacist who put
uninterruptible attention and focus into anything he did whether filling a pill bottle or playing a
Bach partita, he was always accompanied by his lithe, plain faced and ordinary to the point of
unattractive, young wife, Linda, who sang and yawned while religiously watching her husband
play the hymns and marches. With a distant sadness, the Preacher knew that Linda was having
an affair with a feed salesman from Illinois and so he watched her watch her husband intently as
if afraid to remove her eyes from him and so allow her thoughts stray into licentious fields.
Stanley Wagner, as thin and awkward as a scarecrow, who was the owner of a hardware store,
and a drunk. Elizabeth Kastovich, a widow of a banker, who headed up the churchs charity for
victims of domestic violence. There was the perennially happy couple, Fred and Dorothy
Cummins, who held hands in service and kissed each other openly when it was time to wish
peace to our neighbors, this they had done for more than twelve years. Douglas Hindermann, a
greying anthropomorphic bachelor, who was unemployed other than as the little league coach,
and some said he liked little boys a little too much for most peoples comfort. How had these
people chosen his church, how had they chosen him to lead them, how had this tribe of elders
come to be his flock? He could not guess. There was Duncan Newberry, who was an army

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colonel who shot his own son accidently one day by firing a shotgun through the side of his barn,
his son masturbating in the hay on the other side of the wall. Was there really redemption for
each and every one of these wretched living? There was Sonya Hoftstaader, who had married
five times before her last husband died of a stroke leaving her with a hidden trove of debt that
wiped out all she had worked so hard to collect from her previous nuptials. He was thankful that
he rarely had to perform marriages or baptisms as he felt that his fingers did not bring blessings
but the curse of age. Cyrus Abernathy whose face was dried and flattened by the sun, a
hardworking farmer, a truck driver, a man who still had a body of muscle and sinew beneath
pants and suit coat larger and baggier than they were in the past, his twenty six year old daughter,
the only kin he had left, who left her husband on their honeymoon, ran off with a new man she
had known for all of a few hours, ran off with him to Alaska, where she contracted a disease and
was left barren while her boyfriend fell into the freezing waters off the side of a fishing boat,
now lives on oxygen, an invalid with a brain no more useful than the bowl of Thanksgiving
ambrosia. The Preacher put them to earth, as many as four a month now, almost once a week,
often more than one on any given Sunday, his primary vocation was to bury, to toss dirt, sprinkle
ash. There was Frank Delaney, a professor from the university who lost his testicles to cancer,
Claris Mueller who was waiting for a bone marrow transplant, Doug Clinger who needed a heart,
and Patty Smithers who had only days left on her sick liver. Every Sunday, the list of requests
for prayers to help the sick, the dying, the should be dead grew longer. Why do they embalm the
folks who are eighty, ninety years of age, what are they preserving, no one wants to be forever
remembered at that age? A racket it was. Money that could be better spent on day care for the
kids or the gambling boats for that matter. Mabel Skjey was preserved even though she had lost
her lower jaw and most of her neck to cancer. Dick Stroheim was embalmed with a fake eye and

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a nose reconstructed from putty, both of which he lost in a fatal tractor accident. Why? Doris
Kzowlaskis grey and pocked face was painted white and smooth to hide the decades of effects
that the pesticide factory had had on her. Why? Why? Finally, and how could he forget, last but
not least, of course, yes, there was the faithful and devoted Mrs. Klempton, a fifty-something
widow who had kept her figure well, whose face had been treated with time rather kindly, who
sat as near to him as she could without being any more obvious than she was when she gave him
cookies or brownies after the sermon. A plate wrapped in gay green cellophane sat patiently in
her lap.
He was less than memorable at giving sermons, hardly inspiring, downright boring. It
didnt help that he usually took his weekly message from a book of canned talks offered to the
Lutheran brotherhood on the Internet, a depository of speeches watered down from the
Catechisms that he perfected in their mediocrity through pallid and lifeless regurgitation from the
pulpit. He was simply uninspired and uninspiring. He also lacked the one requirement of a
Lutheran minister, a guiding sonorous voice, as song was more vital than the word, and his voice
was flat, throaty and guttural except for the few times when he lifted his face and sang to the
arches above him, drowning out the weak lunged voices of his congregation at the end of a
psalm.
If you are a Lutheran minister, isnt that what is required most of all, to give some
heartfelt, spirit-filled interpretation of Gods word? Wasnt that what Luther, that crude, rude
lunatic of a reformist, cried out for to begin with? An honest, not intelligent, a clear and deeply
felt, not interpretative, interpretation of the gospels in a language that everyone could understand,
in terms that everyone could comprehend, in emotions that everyone could feel? No, not the feel
good emotion of the Baptists, but the deeply felt pain and clarity that came with embracing a
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truth that was in fact felt, not known, that resonated within, but did not bring feet to tap or legs to
jiggle or arms to wave. Hallelujah hell no!
No. He had no chorus to sing of redemption, although behind the billowing abdomen of
Angie Bickerstaff they came to him volunteering to form a choir, but, and he was practical, when
he calculated how long it would take them, walkers and canes and all, to get up from their pews
and assemble in front of the altar to sing, then, when done, to get up and return to their seats, a
choir was not possible, practically speaking. So, he had no musicians to sway his flock into an
orgiastic frenzy, he had no voice by which to elevate his toneless sermon into a call to freedom, a
call to hope, a call to a new life. He had but Patrick, his solid and adequate organ player to
accompany the hymns, to provide the somber music preluding his entrance, to cover the
seemingly endless minutes of the sacrament, and the achingly endless minutes more required for
the parishioners to get to their feet, crabwalk across the pews, turn towards the door, and shuffle
back outside where he stood after every sermon to smile and shake their hands while in his mind
he was whisking them away, back to their lazy boy chairs, back to their television sets, back
home to take a nap, to sit on a porch, to take their medications, back to their assisted living
facility, to their long term care center, back home to a place that probably was not like home at
all, that was more like a coffin than a coffin. Yes, he could feel sad, he could feel remorse even,
for what he did not do, what he could have done and didnt, what he allowed to never be done,
the small things, the simplest things, the whisper in an ear that someone looks beautiful,
remembering a birthday, bringing flowers to the hospital, dropping by with a copy of prayers if
that person was unable to make it to church one weekend. He did and he didnt.
He wondered how the youth had disappeared from this nave, vanished over time as if
slowly erased without his noticing, not until they were gone. He distinctly remembered how this
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nave, constructed more than one hundred year ago to carry a congregation on a voyage with
Gods word, had once been filled with families, restless bratty kids, no he did not miss them,
those gangly sleepy pimple faced teens, sitting awkwardly next to parents in their Sunday best,
men with hair slicked down and women bearing spun sugar dos. He still had on display in the
historical society room a picture of the Rev Hummerbund at the helm, standing at the pulpit like
the true captain of a ship. Hummerbund had a voice that would shake your timbers, would wake
your soul, would terrify and satisfy you.
Aside from the church, his flock and his fantasies of the past, his life, these days and
nights of monotony, these weeks of watching decay assume its final stage just before all
collapsed, these months and years that seemed the same, the time passed by that quickly, his life
was entering a period where all he could do was revisit the observations that had piled up inside
of him like notes in a diary, like poisons in his blood.
Like how the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts
are many, they form one body.
How the simplest act of volition touches upon all we know or ever have known. How
love vanishes once touched, once held. How death comes in shades of grey. How time is not
captured or reified in this moment, nor at all.
How he was always a coward, since he was a child. Afraid of men, of boys. Never
beaten but always afraid of being beaten. Teachers called him cry baby as he would burst in
tears if reprimanded. Kids called him little girl because he cried if he fell and scraped an elbow
or knee.
How he loved animals more than people knowing from a young age that animals and
people were of the same basic stuff, the same flesh and blood, with differences like hooves
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instead of feet and fangs for teeth and tails and thick hair but all the same all was basically the
same, terribly the same actually, as eyes were eyes and mouths had teeth and legs had three
bones and arms had three bones and ribs held lungs and hearts and stomachs emptied into piles
of intestines and as things ate they shat and as things breathed they needed water to drink and as
things had eyes they looked into his eyes, and so this early perception of similitude was the germ
that created the inextinguishable thought that there was a beast within him, below the surface,
capable of expression, or eruption, of a slight reorganization of things here and there and with
that would appear, could appear.
How he had wanted to be a doctor ever since witnessing the terrible electrocution of
Bobby Staples, who was swinging a golf club near an electrical transformer and out of the big
gray box a bolt of electricity zapped his club sending the young boy into prolonged and teeth
shattering convulsions, an event that stirred most in him a fascination with the body, its
compliance under another force, not one of God but a force of man, an electrical current. How
true control was achieved through physical not spiritual means, and so began his fascination with
the flesh and how he could manipulate it, move it, fix it, cure it.
How his parents were of common stock and uncertain ambition, both born to alcoholic
families, both the first to rise above their middling means, and yet in their dissatisfaction of their
plight they sought to see him, their son, ascend even higher. How he was born to the son of a
railway man, the first of the family to work through college, to get a degree and begin work in a
white shirt and tie, a cold man with a ferocious temper, who terrorized his workers at the plant
that made vacuum tubes as well as terrorized his family until he had quaffed enough martinis to
slide into a quiet, distant oblivion.

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How he could barely remember his father, well he could remember his father quite well
from times late in his fathers life, but he could not remember his father from the earlier parts of
his life, as if his father had never really been there in the house, had never really sat at the
kitchen table for dinner, had never mowed the grass or washed the car in the driveway, how his
father had never been to one of his baseball games, how his father had never been there to hug or
kiss his mother, had never been in the living room reading the paper, had never filled a room
with pipe smoke, had never made a work bench in the garage and here constructed a television
set from all these little bulbs and electronic things, had never spanked him, had never called him
in from playing outside, had never tucked him in, had never sang happy birthday as if he had
made all these things up.
How his mother had been an adequate but uninspired mother, an adequate but unfulfilled
wife, adequate at all things that she set herself to do including working in a police precinct, at an
veterinary office, as a real estate agent, as the personal assistant to the city mayor, but still she
remained a woman who was dissatisfied with most things, a dissatisfaction that he eventually
wore as well and carried with him as a burden that he could not shed.
How he went to medical school, thinking that doctors and priests share the same
compassion for human beings, that doctors and priests each have a hand in salvation, that doctors
and priests each carry an oath to serve mankind, and that doctors actually help people get better,
while priests do little more than try to comfort ones getting worse. How he believed that doctors
were trained to think of humans as organs and processes. Doctors could not avoid taking hold of
a penis, looking inside a vagina, there could be no complicity with thoughts of sin or evil when
doing ones job, priests taught to avoid the carnal and seek a connection with the spiritual.

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How his years at medical school were as close as he came to believing in purgatory and
hell, the long hours of learning by rote the bits of anatomy, the names for chemical reactions, the
collections of symptoms, it was brain numbing, mind-numbing, forcing them all to wash down
what they learned with beer to make room for more facts and names the following day. He felt he
was being fattened with facts, he was becoming bloated with useless garbage, his being stuffed
with nonsense until he was ready to be skewered and roasted on a spit, cooked on a fire and then
served to his patients.
How he left his studies in medicine not because of the pain and discomfort it caused him
but because he could not submerge his faith. How digging and cutting through a cadaver was not
the way to find anything. How there was nothing dissimilar pulling apart grey lifeless muscles or
veins in a putrefied human cadaver and working in the slaughterhouse, whereas in the latter he
had the chance to feel the last ebbs of life flitter and jerk in his hands, it had no meaning, no
impact and felt no less carnal than holding the grey, cold and formaldehyde soaked tissue of his
cadaver.
How he blamed medical school, the long days and even longer nights of studying, of
staying awake for days on end, drinking coffee and taking amphetamines to stay awake until you
hallucinate and see every page word for word before your eyes, a skill which of course vanishes
right before the exam, then the binges of drinking and the falling asleep on bathroom floors, in
hallways, outside in the cold. He became sickly and never recovered.
How priests were the only ones that held him when he cried despite the face of Luther
whose fiery eyes and ugly face heaped scorn on his own wimpy ways. But even they lost
compassion for him, they no longer cared when he wailed in terror at night, or suddenly fell
prostrate to the ground weeping to the earth. They no longer asked him what was wrong as he
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walked around with a mask of discomfort on his face, his innards wrapped into a painful knot.
He became the one who suffered alone.
How he never found in any woman the passage to free him from his doubts about this
that, life, himself, and how could any woman be expected to carry out that task, and so when it
came to women, the Preacher could only open the gift and see what it was from the outside,
could never fully unwrap it and make it his and see what was hidden, what existed for him ad
what could have been his but not his and what could have been fulfilled not only promised, what
could have been real not simply drunkenly imagined, what could have been created and not
ignorantly believed to be fully inexistence like some ripened fruit.
How he had never married and often wondered if it was his size that stopped his desire,
he was of course inordinately tall, more than six feet eight when he lifted his head and
straightened his spine, but still he was small, diminutive compared to most of the men here, he
was not broad shoulder, barrel chested, large bellied like them, he did not have the thick blubbery
thighs or the knotted calves revealed on hot summer days. His arms were lithe, his hands small
and delicate. His neck was thin, like a cats. Even Luther himself had been a large man, his
body suggesting that he tasted the flesh and when he did he feasted on it savagely. Luther had
smuggled his wife out of a convent as if she were food, put her in a herring barrel, fish fit for a
man. As Luther were these other men in B, without grace perhaps but with a mighty appetite
they had for food and for their women. He, on the other hand, lacked not only the appetite but
the cutlery.
How foolish it was to compare oneself to greatness, even if one could find rhythmic
parallels between ones small insignificant life and the larger lives of those who changed the
world.
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How he took to heart Luthers words that we are not to encourage world-flight, but to
service the neighbor in the common daily vocations of this perishing world.
How he knew the history of this town and its origin on the river and the plans by so many
to build it into the major city and it had as much if not more than those cities at least at the
beginning, as it had the river and a good, protective harbor, as it had the gentle but significant
hills on which a city would build above floods, and as it had vast orchards of wild fruit trees and
all kinds of game and planet of wood for building and stone that went into the many original
buildings, as it had a strategic position where soldiers could safely regroup, which meant drink
and fornicate, before facing the hostile territories of the west, north and south, as it had an innate
and palpable consignment with god, a fateful relationship that was born in all things natured and
all things of mans symbolic importance.
How he loved the people here, yet the recognition that they are nothing in the scheme of
things, that they are bits of dust still blowing about the heart of the heart of the country, that they
will never be missed, they will never be needed. How much like the pigs bred here they are, how
much like livestock, herded about from manufacturing plant to factory, from assembly line to call
center, herded from hospitals to give birth back then to hospitals to die, herded into care
facilities, herded into low income housing, herded into dilapidated neighborhoods, trailer parks.
How he had no real drive in life, nothing that he could say was the reason he did what he
did, no raison detre, no passion, no enthusiasm bridled or un, but he did have one thing that
spurred him on in some direction, that banged at his ribs, gouged his kidneys and sucked his
breath away at certain moments unpredictable and undesired, and this was that the constant
challenge he felt from Walker, not a challenge directly from the man himself, but what the man
stood for, not for others but for him, the Preacher, what Walker stood for in the Preachers mind,
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what the man was in his essence, in the aura that he created, in the mystery of his appearance, his
being, his success, his failures, all were far more and far outreaching the abilities and capabilities
of the normal man, and the Preacher knew this and knew more about Walker than anyone.
And how much was Walker responsible for this? For him? Did his inner conviction to the
gospel even exist before he saw Walker take the hand of Alicia and vanish into the house he built
on the widows hill? How much had Walker to do with his decision to quit medical school? To
leave behind a scholarship and a career? To begin following this murky and obstacle cluttered
path that he was on now, one that had no end, no goal, no resolution?
And how much did Walker have to do with his failings here in his church? With his
doubts? With his indecision, his inability to accept what he once accepted with purpose? With
this lack of confidence, his wavering commitment, with the feeling of emptiness that filled his
chest, with the feeling of betrayal that he felt towards his flock as if he were leading them
nowhere, for this overall feeling that life was without substance and that there was nothing that
could permit him to see bliss, joy or hope anywhere in anything?
How until Walker, the Preacher had never truly contemplated the limitations of man, not
the measly limitations we all find within ourselves, such as how far or how fast we can throw a
baseball, how quickly we can learn arithmetic, or how close are we willing to get to an accident
on the highway. No the limitations that he learned about from his experiences with Walker were
deeper than that, more existential, as if he were touching the once untouchable elements that
restricted all our thoughts, the very nature of our beings, as if through Walker he was forced to
blindly and grotesquely feel the inner limitations that gave meaning but were not meaningful in
themselves.

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And how until Walker, the preacher had had no real notion of evil, aside from the notions
learned by rote and habit, had no means to understand evil, to address it, to even recognize it, no
means by which to peg a layer of thought, to weave a dissertation, no manner by which to have
any confidence that he had the mental faculties to tackle the subject, to know that there was a
subject to be talked about, to even know why he would even bother to waste any of these so
called faculties on this so called subject.
How you might suspect that here was a man who would have been crippled in some way
by his inability to rise to a level of faith or understanding, and that this would in fact have been
his weakness, his Achilles heel, his fatal flaw, but in fact, it was his inability to understand that
led him to faith in the first place and so it is our mistake to assume that from understanding
comes faith when in fact it is the opposite, that faith precedes understanding and in some cases
can be said to annihilate any future attempts to understanding, which is to say that faith when
accepted wholly and embraced as such can be a very powerful and gifted experience. Walker
taught him that faith was in fact not a solution, but simply opened another fault in his already
shallow inner being.
How the lack of adornment within the church was troubling, as it always asked for
conversation over silent awe. He could not keep still in his church, he was forced to keep
moving so as to avoid the blank walls, the empty space, the austere invitation to speak to God.
How he had no desire to weep any more. How God was a catalyst for wracking tears, not for any
enlightenment, or engaging conversation.
How his church had but two points of amazement left for him, one old and one new, one
inside and one outside. The old point of amazement was the rood beam, the wooden beam often
overlooked, but runs across the center of the nave, and standing below the steps of the chancel
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and looking heavenward, he could see in the timber structure that was the architects way of
saying Jesus is the center of worship, for He is the Rood Beam of this edifice.
How the new point of amazement was the steel cross on the steeple, put up there only last
year by a man who may have condemned this church forever.
How he remembers the stormy night when Walker climbed to install the metal crucifix on
the church steeple, the steel crucifix that Walker had made as an approximate replica of the one
that had originally adorned the steeple, which had fallen or was removed without making it into
anyones written history, without a remark in the churchs daily logs of Rev Hammerbund, who
must have dismissed it as a trivial event not so worthy of remark, after all it was only the
toppling of a seven foot iron crucifix, the one Jesus would be nailed to, which must have landed
with some impact upon either the grounds or the church itself and yet there was no mention of
any repairs, not a word about the need to replace it, no suggestion that parishioners donate even
more than the pittance they already gave so that a new one could be re-erected, and this begs the
questions as to where did the crucifix disappear, and perhaps opens the question that maybe the
crucifix did not fall by accident or grace of God but was removed, perhaps to be smelted down
and recycled as they might do in those days, or that someone may have stolen it and used to as
the frame for a tractor trailer or to hold up the backbone of a sagging barn, how Walker had lifted
the new two hundred pound steel sculpture he had designed and welded in his barn, lifted if to
the steeple with a set of pulleys and the winch off the front of his truck, and that one third of its
height was a steel beam that would slide into a hole at the very pinnacle of the steeple to be
attached and secured with long steel bolts hidden beneath the wooden ceiling, and how he had
the crucifix in place, positioned in the hole, the arms turned exactly in position, Walker hanging
from the steep copper sides of the steeple with a leather belt that was looped around the pinnacle,
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a harness on which he could spin around in three hundred and sixty degrees, dancing with his
feet against the roof, as he examined the crucifix from every side and inserted the shims that
would steady it until he could climb off the roof and climb back into the inside of the steeple and
there bolt the crucifix in place forever, but as he was finishing his shim work the weather turned,
the winds burst across the hilltops and clouds rolled in dark and angry, thundered rumbled across
the ways, and the shims he had inserted were not enough to hold the crucifix in place, it teetered
ever so slightly but the imperfection had to be corrected before it was locked into place, and how
Walker continued to dance in circles around the cross, driving in more shims but the wind would
come again as if purposefully from another direction to catch him off guard, to knock him off his
feet and send him spinning about and tumbling down the side of the steeple and how a light rain
had wetted the copper plating and it grew too slick for his boots, and the wind came with greater
force and rain began to pelt him and how the cross now tottered back and forth in its unfastened
state and darkness descended and across the hills lightening began to crack and the preacher
called for Walker to get down and Walker shouted back he was just about done, but the preacher
could see the massive steel structure swaying in the wind and Walker slipping off the metal
roofing, the dark clouds filling the sky like ink spilling into a water glass, the wind now playing
with him, tossing him about, smacking him across the steeply inclined roof, his black hair wet
and hanging down into his face, his feet struggling vainly to keep a position, grappling with his
hand to gain some purchase until he could drive in another shim but the wind and the rain would
have none of it and at one time he was knocked clear off the roof and spun around like a toy on
the end of a string until he hit the side of the steeple with a loud thud and the crucifix began to
shudder as if it were being shaken free of this holster, and how the lighting now struck within a
few seconds count before the thunder rolled down on them like the very shouts from heaven, and

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for the first time the Preacher not only wondered if there was a clear but unrecognized reason
that the old crucifix had been removed from this roof, if there was an unspoken horror that had
never been recorded, how he, a man of the cloth who did not believe in signs, now wondered if
he was indeed receiving such an unmistakable sign, and he was so overwhelmed by this that he
forgot that there was a man on the steeple, how he forgot that a mans mortal life was in peril, the
Preacher in his rain and sweat soaked ecstasy beneath the spectacle and the angry clouds was
ready to sacrifice that, to allow that man whose name suddenly no longer mattered to be
sacrificed, if only he could finally receive this sign, this direct communication from the Lord
himself, not one man, not two men, not any number of men mattered, all and any number were
worthy of sacrifice to witness this event, to receive this message and he suddenly knew how the
cruel elders of churches came to be so ruthless, smiled while being so cruel, allowed so many to
die, how they killed and maimed and tortured so many men and women, here was the reason,
here was the power, the only time when you understood and could witness the wrath, the fury,
feel the hand of a God, and how that hand would soon do away with this man, this beast, this
archangel, Walker.
How Walker then somehow gathered himself against the forces of wind and rain, found
the point to plant the last shim, sent it into place with his hammer, wiped his brow and stood
looking up at the crucifix now perfectly in place, held the leather strap of his harness and slicked
back the hair from his eyes as the rain pelted him and his face showed no signs of fear, but he
arched his back and opened his mouth as if about to shout out his final victory, instead simply
held his mouth open to the sky and took in the rain drops and never flinched as the last lightning
bolt of the storm crackled into the ground on one of the hills to the west and the Preacher
realized not with any relief that the battle had been won and it was not a victory for God, it was

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not a victory for faith, but a victory won by a single man, a single mortal man, and that this was
not the first time this man had snatched providence from him, that this would not be the last time
this man would steal his faith, that this is what he would have to live with and this is where he
would have to stay for there was no running from a man like this, this was destiny.
How life would be bearable if not for Walker.
How life would be unbearable without Walker. For it was Walker who created a position
in time, a place on earth that cannot be ignored, that must be confronted. The fear of that
confrontation becomes the all-consuming moment of being. Day in and night out, the fearful
need to stand before that man, the terrifying compulsion to look into that face, to found him and
hold him down and see what swims in these eyes, to see what darts about in that mouth, what
ripples in those arms, what ventures forth from that body, what struggles in that mind.
How the young men who came to him asking for advice, the married women who had
been betrayed, who would betray, the kids who thought bad things of their teachers, the old men
who had done something horrible in their lives and need to remove it like a cancer, like a tumor.
He could not help them.
How the people who came to him asking for help in finding a lost son, in having the Lord
cure their spreading skin lesions, who only wanted to win the lottery, who came to him and asked
him to bless their friend who was sick, to help a neighbor find happiness with a new wife, to help
a cat recover from being hit on the road shamelessly he had come to recognize these as pleas
not for the warfare or beneficiary, but ways in which people gained favor for themselves by
asking for help to others.
How he was not truly skeptical, he was a practitioner of life as it was, everyone was
weak, everyone had flaws and everyone would suffer mightily from those flaws, and that we
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know those flaws and we harbor them from others and most of all from ourselves, we hide them
beneath clothing, we hid them deep in our minds, we hide them by putting on displays for other
to see that espouse nothing but the exact opposite, such as if we dont have money, we buy an
expensive car, or if deep down we dont like blacks, we foster a child in Africa, or if we hit our
wife, we take her to Sunday brunch at the Golden Corral, dark sunglasses and all, or if we have a
cancerous testicle, we wear baggier pants, and if we killed someone long ago, we keep the hunt
for the killer alive with a maniacal level of commitment and zeal.
How he has watched the boys and girls escape, the ones who leave and never come back,
who never even come to visit for holidays.
How the children grew up understanding that the earth was a place that with knowing
cruelty turned to mud if you had to suddenly outrun a bull, it was a place that pelted you with
cold rain, with stinging sleet and sometimes with killing balls of ice, it was a place that dried up
when you needed water, it was a place that flooded when you had simply asked for rain, it was a
place that nurtured plants but broke your bones, that beauty hid danger, that animals were things
that grew up to be slaughtered, that survival was all that mattered, mattered more than talk,
mattered more than love, mattered more than caring how the world would change if the only
if was the if of living. The only if was the if of having food this winter. The only if was the if of
waking to see another day. And so the is what they worked to achieve. Another day. That is
what they strove to accomplish. Another day. That is what they dreamed of. Another day. That
is what they wrote about in little padlocked diaries. Another day.
How aside from hard work, what did one learn about life here? You learned here not was
life was but what it was not. That life is good? No, life was not good. That nature is bountiful?
No nature takes before it gives. That knowledge is worth having? That man is a moral being?
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No. none of that. One learned that life is work and the good life comes from hard work even if
you can never work hard enough to attain it, even if you work so hard you can never enjoy it.
Life is not to be enjoyed, for Christs sake! Life gives us the ability to use our muscles, to use
our hands and feet, our shoulders and legs to work. Work is what life is, it is an endless
expiration, it is an never ending set of tasks, it is the routine of work from day to day and night to
night. It is the only pattern that has meaning, it is the meaning, it is the pattern. It is Gods way.
Work is God.
How he had seen the transformation in Alicia as they all had, the first transformation that
came with her marriage to Walker, the second transformation that came with the birth of her son.
Then the break. The return. Now she is seeking a different path. Searching the heavens,
looking to the unknown to cure what she fears of the known.
How he alone knew what ailed the Sheriff, for he had the knowledge to understand that
unlike most human beings, the Sheriff had bones that did not know to stop growing, that as he
aged his bones continued to grow, thicken, fatten, the bones of his arms, his legs, and most
noticeably the bones of his face. What had once been a handsome young man had evolved into a
squarish ogre of deformity, his forehead had swelled far out over his eyes, his cheeks broadening
so that his eyes fell deep into their sockets. His jaw bone was growing outward and pushing his
lower teeth far in front of the upper ones that were being pushed downward into the gaping maw.
His nose had arched and spread out the nostrils giving him a neanderthalic set of features, as if
he had indeed devolved while ankles grew into large nodules, knees round as basketballs, and
that he seemed to be sprouting wings from his shoulder blades, visible protrusion pushing up
through his shirt and jacket. How he had Pagets Disease, a disfiguring ailment that transformed

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the skulls and faces of its victims into the lumpen, misshapen skulls found of ancient Norse
sailors or even Neanderthal fossils.
How for the preacher, the transmogrification taking place in the Sherriff was itself more
evidence of the beast within. How the people of this city were numbed by the rapes they had
endured. How life was nothing if no greatness could ever be known.
How he was the first in his tribe to live a life that was not afloat in alcohol, how he was
the first not to have made a burning swathe of wreckage through life, leaving behind battered
women, crippled children, debts, a foreclosed farm, warrants for his arrest.
How his love for a woman who was now a frail and formless old woman could have
shaped his life so thoroughly and so permanently.
How the man who took this woman into his concubinage, who took her away off the web
of his sick soul, who bound here and fed off her, keeping her alive for all those decades while he,
the preacher could only watch and whine like a dog on the end of a chain.
How he loved this woman loved her as what? As a mother? An aunt? A sister? A
member of his tribe? As a person that had accompanied him for all time through history and was
destined to be with him for time immemorial? What had occurred to bind him to her? What had
happened in the passing of events, the trivialities of life, the simple sights, the barely
remembered sounds, the lost events, the forgotten moments, days and years to have created this
bond? It was a bond, it was nothing less, it held and raptured him, it tied and limited him, it cut
into him, it stunted growth, it limited the future, it made no sense.
How only he knew that her condition was one of a brain that had seized upon itself, had
taken identity and consciousness hostage, turned reality into a Berkelian shadow play, no longer

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tied to the physical world of sound and light, color and shape, but created on unrestricted neurons
which were to their fancy and not guided by any logic that the world might impose. All of her
faculties were enslaved in the terrible dance that this internal disfigurement rent upon her soul,
she was caught in a vortex of images and conversation, battles and emotions that would never be
known to anyone but her. Who knew what terrors she witnessed, what loneliness entailed,
whatever present danger she felt lurked by her at every moment. She was worn down by these
phantoms, these devils, she was ground down into far less of the woman that she had been most
of her life, she was beaten and rent and shaken until like a rag doll cant be shaken any more,
form is lost, stitching unstitch and contents begin to spill forth. She oozed and shed what human
traits were bond inside and finally found herself shaking and desperate like a capture wild
animal, she was tied to a bed and shocked through scalp with electricity, injected with one of
many drugs that would be tried until finally she was rendered fit to leave.
How his flock never knew, never looked into his eyes wondering if there was any internal
pain dwelling there. How he wished he had the guts to be an artist and to find a sword by which
to throw himself on with flair. How he worried that no cancer would ever swell his pancreas,
soften his bones or blackened his brain, how he would be spared and to his horror would
discover that he was the only one of any person in this town who wanted to be eaten, to be rotted,
to be rendered into a less than human mass. How he wished he could transform himself to words
or song and so transcend this waste defiled pit of earthly existence. How he loathed laughter.
How science will only enliven understanding when it becomes itself poetic. How money is the
blood of the new homo materialis. How Heidegger was right, how Rilke was right, how Carnap
was right, how the Germans were so right and so desperately wrong. How we know what we
know before we know it. How chance only describes what we dont understand, and how we will

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never understand. How the mind is only definable within a community or minds. How evolution
is just another revelation of how simple minded we really are. How he could care so deeply for
so many people and deliver so little to ensure their constant happiness.
How he never had anything of real meaning to say at funerals or burials; how the words
could have been the thumping of a drum, the beating of fingertips on a table, the tapping of a
shoe beneath the table, the sounds that perhaps came before there were words not because we
were seeking to communicate but because we feared the silence.
How he wished Alicia would finally take her turn, finally bow out, what was she in God's
sake waiting for, what purpose did it serve to linger on, to be here, to cast that shadow in her
living room windows, to walk the gardens like some wind tossed piece of cloth torn from the
drying lines.
How he wished the winds would tear everything out by the roots and pile this wreckage
of a town up in mountains far from here.
How he wished the aliens who impregnated us with this curse of intelligence would come
back and bury their stupid experiments.
How he wished he could have left, but now it was too late.
How had it not been for Walker, he, the preacher, would have been able to leave as well.
How long?
How he knew that Walker was the father of both the young Walker and Flint of the same
age, how both of them had come into being in the very same year, only a month apart, how both
mothers gave birth alone without a husband aside them, how both mothers struggled with the
delivery, how both mothers were plunged into a dark depression post-partum ,and how their lives
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now were defined by the birth of this child, and defined by the father of their children, the same
man for both, and the disfigurements that occurred thereafter.
How he had watched the young Walker and Flint grow up not knowing what tethered
them, unaware of what they shared, despite the obvious features in common, despite the
startlingly similar behaviors, the Walkerisms that they both employed from an early age.
How he embraced chastity not for his Lord but for Alicia, how he swore to never engage
carnally with any woman other than Alicia and then when she and Walker became conjoined his
commitment to his virginity immediately became more general and he embraced it in the abstract
although not without the concrete image of Alicia always there to remind him of his
commitment.
How he slammed his finger with a sledge hammer and removed the tip of that pinky so
that the nail grew back like a claw as if he had peeled back his ancestry on that one hand and
revealed a beast within.
How he fell in love with the church when he was very young, maybe as young as five or
six, and how he sought to recreate the altar and the basin in his mothers washroom using plastic
hampers and buckets, how at a young age he felt the piety of poverty and relished the poverty of
his church, how he draped his mothers lingerie around his neck and there he would kneel and
with folded hands there he would pray and as they did not have a Bible in the house he at first
tried to use a dictionary which had thin pages and columns of words but that would not suffice
and so he set to making his own bible and he took Kleenex and tissue paper and melted them in
water, he then took that paste and spread it out on a screen and with a piecrust roller he pressed
the pulp dry and then let it further dry in the sun, and when finished he removed a square of

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rough and lumpy paper on which he scribbled symbols of God with black ink and folded and set
before him as his divine instrument to conduct his private church and ceremony.
How one day he walked into the nave and was given the miracle of being able to see with
a childs eyes and for the first time saw the missiles in the windows, the center sections of each
colored glass window contained a symbol, the angus dei, for example, the pomegranate, the
crucifix, the chalice of St. John holding the green serpent, the flint knives of Gilgal and others,
and there were twelve of these windows, six on the north side and six on the south side, and this
dominating center section of each was suddenly, unmistakingly in the shape of a missile, long
and slender with a narrowing cap on the top, surrounding the cap had once been roses but now
were most clearly atoms, nuclear atoms surrounding the cap of each missile like orbiting bees,
the projectiles ready to take the symbols of Christ to war, loaded with energy, ready for
destruction.
How he regretted many things and yet did not know how to forget.
How much longer?
How he had nothing to leave behind should he leave this life behind, no offspring, no
home, certainly no money, no memoirs, no cracker crumbs or lint balls of ideas either written in
books, journals or letters, nothing painted, sculpted, or otherwise framed by the tools evolution
had given this humans, his life was a wisp of smoke such as unfurled from his nostrils and
seeped into the wind, his life was a series of cartooned speeches indistinguishable from the
thousands of others shared by pastors from Bellingham to Andover, his life was an endless river
of limp handshakes from people who could not look him in the eye when they thanked him after
his Sunday sermon, his life was an endless flushing of dead bodies into the septic tank of the
earth, he could hear the flush as each casket was plopped into the hole.
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How he walked through the town, down its main corridors, past the storefronts which had
changed so many times but now had settled into the state of abandoned decay and forlorn
neglect, the clothing shops had been the first to go, the mens haberdashery, the womens
fashions and then finally the kids second hand stores, all gone, just as the jewelry stores closed
up, and the appliance and repair shop bolted and chained its doors upon some remaining but
apparently worthless inventory of stoves and refrigerators, and then the record store, the shoe
repair, the news and cigarette store was the last to go, but it too dissolved into the faded movies
posters and graffiti that now covered its window front where the Marlboro man used to rein.
How this town has not been touched by greatness, how it has never experienced the
magnitude of the human intellect, the human soul.

How it quagmires in the mundane, is

fossilized in the mediocre, becomes a statue of the lessor of life. How so many of its towns,
softened old Indian names, Owasa and Ames and Otumma and Selma and Otley and Wapello,
towns named after the long forgotten Sheldons and Websters and Spencers and Coopers, gutless
names, names no one wants to remember. How death must be preceded by a life, a life that must
have some weight, must have left some dent in the earth, before it can enter a grave with any
meaning. These people who are more horrified of death from a shotgun than from exploding
lungs and hardened hearts. How history will never be written off the legs and backs of these
people, how these people did not dream but they saw without blinking, ate dust without choking.
How he hates the people here. This hatred betrayed by the pure love he shares with them.
How long, how long?
How Alicia had been first consumed by her own pride, then consumed by her love for a
man who would consume her with his terrible ways, and then how she was consumed by her
hatred, consumed by the machines that turned the soft guts of workers to hardened entrails, how
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she was then consumed by her burning visions, her incessant thoughts, how she was finally
consumed by the ants, the beetles, deerflies, horseflies, mosquitoes, wasps, bees, spiders, earwigs
and other insects that spun, bit, sucked and desiccated her.
How long?
How he believed there was within each and every one of us an event of our making, an
irreversible and irreparable act that defined us even if that event was simply something we
avoided thinking about, addressing, for the rest of our lives. An historical act that could never be
undone by a new, a future act.
How long?
How he knew the actual truth, if indeed there were actually such a thing, whereas
probably no one else in the town had an inkling of what even resembled the truth, and that he
alone was so empowered and so alone he was the one who could have been the arbiter and yet he
was in no position or in no station by which he could formally wield the power of arbitration, his
station being designed around the limitations to accept confession in private and to bless and
forever keep the silent musings of the dead.
How it occurred to him that this why he was brought to the church, he was not brought
here to feed a congregation, to be a moral compass, to hear confessions, to marry future
divorcees, or to bury sinners out of sight and out of mind, but instead that he was and had been
brought here for this one event, this one hour.
Yes, now. The sun had set west of the seven hills of B, shadows now covered the slow,
muddy spill of the river and the Preacher knew it was time to go.

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Once a year he deorve to Des Mionies for hte annual Lutheran synod assembly. There he woud
meet the synod leaders from the other parishes. Marty Linder from Ames, Carol Spangnol from ,
He could drive to the Assembly with one or more of the lay assembly member, but this was a
drive hepreferred to take alone. Tjhis was a time where he met himself and his blurry expectation
on the hgighway, and in the fileds that rolled past an avalanche of unrealized expectations
sweeping past his feet.

How you may think this is indeed a story of men, while it is really a story of women.
That we must speak of men is apparent, that we must speak of men as if this was a story about
men and not a story about women is what we must do here first, in order to begin.
While this is a story about women, to tell it we must tell the stories of men. We may
allow the women to tell the stories, let the women tell the stories they have about men. Through
these stories about men and through their telling and retelling we will get the story of women.
Such is the story of Walker, a story we can garner not from him, but from the women. Walker
was a man who lived in the shadows and had no future about him. He had no past and he had no
future. All he had at the beginning was a name that made some people think he was something,
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that he had come from somewhere. There was no reason for this, no tradition to impart this
importance to his name, but it was a name that garnered some level of esteem for no other reason
than that it did. Some were not even sure where Walker lived before he appeared one day in B,
not sure if he even lived in a place, in an abode, a house of some sorts. All anyone knew about
him was what they surmised about him which was that what was most important to him which
was first his horses and second his freedom.

And in this world, a trumpet peals its call of loneliness, across a

terrestrial sea, across an ocean of soil, of memories, a trumpet peals.

The widow who lived alone on West Avenue Road told the story of this man who one
early morning appeared on the road above her home with two chestnut horses in tow, he had
stopped and stood there about a quarter mile from her house where she could see him from her
window and there he stood and did not move until he became but a black silhouette against the
sun that went down and then that red fire vanished behind him and night fell. She knew he was
still out there as she could hear the horses questioning their cold circumstances and she could
sense the dark heat of his being and this frightened her, but she knew she could do nothing, if he
wanted to come into the house and have his way he could, there was nothing she could do, and
this was indeed part of the fear in which she always lived, every day since her husband died and
left her alone here in this house adrift on these fields of corn and hayfeed, beneath a uterine but
barren sky. So when she awoke and saw the man still standing there the next morning, standing
there as tall and straight and resolute as if it was the same morning as before, she put on her
clothes and went out to see this man because she knew her fear would be no different whether
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she faced him or not. She wrapped herself in a long coat and walked down her driveway and
when she got there she found a good looking man, dark in face and countenance, dark in
expression, a bit darkened with the dirt of perhaps several days on him and yet he was polite and
called her maam. She asked him what he was doing here and he said, rightfully nuthin maam.
She asked him to come into the kitchen for some coffee and he said not another word, just tipped
his hat and stood as unmoving as when she first saw him and so she turned and walked back to
the house. After some time he led his two chestnut mares down her drive and tied them to a tree
and then came to the door to her kitchen and knocked, his hat in his hand as if holding a squirrel
against his chest.

His hair was black and thick across his scalp like rivulets of oil, she

remembered thinking, his hands darkened with the grease from engines and motors and
generators, his nails round dirty bits of pink opal stuck in the grime of this hands. He did not say
a word but ate the toast she gave him not touching the butter and drank his coffee black without
asking for more.
As Alicia then completes the story, well, he came to stay in her barn where he kept his
horses and with a firm but unspoken agreement between them he tended her land until she died
not long thereafter in the comfort of the safety he had given her, the first comfort she had had for
years as a widow. While everyone was at the funeral, he was preparing his horses to leave the
barn when a man in a fine city suit appeared. You who they call Walker? the attorney asked. I
reckon I guess, Walker said clearing his nostrils and then wiping his nose on his sleeve. With
soft freckled hands, the attorney handed Walker an envelope filled with paperwork. This heres
yours now I guess, the attorney said. And indeed, Walker was the owner now of these ten acres
of land, the widow had bequeathed the lot to him with the house and barn. That day Walker

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immediately set to tear down her house with his own hands, dig up the foundation and then left
what remained as an empty field while he continued to live in the barn.
How Walker knew things by what he saw and what he felt. Life had meaning if it bullwhipped across his nerve endings and yanked like a meat hook at his spine. The closer things
were to death, the more meaning they had. Death he knew was something all things avoided, that
all things fought against from the simplest insect that struggled to crawl despite being crushed, to
the cats and gophers and even deer which amputated by the thrashers scattered like wild
dervishes through the grass on their remaining two or three legs, like people who seemed to live
despite having no sight, no mind, so strength in legs or arms, when no reason to live was
apparent. He knew this and other things, but these things did not guide him, these things simply
answered questions as and when they arose.
Yet in fact it may be observed that Walker was indeed guided by some certain thoughts
and beliefs, and one of those thoughts was that people suffered. He in fact saw suffering as the
one thing all people had in common, and as the one thing that was the same in all people. And so
his relations, his humor, his satisfaction, his principal means of interacting with another human
being was to cause in that person some level of suffering, to watch that reaction and through that
to find a kindred relationship, to see a kinship, to understand the other. This perversion applied
not only to humans by the way but to animals as well. He would rarely pass one of his horses
without slapping it on the rump a little too hard, or flicking its ear with the end of a whip. He
used fear to create a relationship between him and his animals, even the ones he loved the most,
a fear that he drove into them with spurs and heels and stick and shouts and the smell of a man
who smelled as if he were on fire, burning in rage, an unctuous diesel kind of fear to which all
his animals finally succumbed as Walker was as relentless as he was determined. With humans,
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his interaction was the same, albeit more subtle. He brought pain to everyone that allowed him
proximity, a pinch, a grasp that was too hard too long, even the burn from the tip of his cigarette
allowed to drift carelessly close to skin or hair. All of this evoked in Walker that guffaw of
laughter of course and the more pain the higher his lips parted from his teeth and the greater his
shouts of laughter.
How there are no true beginnings to these stories, no points of origination, no paths we
can follow. We dont know about Walkers childhood, we dont know if what he experienced
was even more terrible and terrifying, even more sadistic and cruel than what he imposed on his
own son and other relations, perhaps he lived in horrors far beyond what we know the young
Walker had to endure. Whatever the case, the young Walker grew up to believe that his father,
Walker, was the strongest, most courageous man there was, he grew up to believe that there was
nothing that his father could or ever would fear, he grew up to believe that there was nothing in
the universe greater or more omnipotent than his father, nothing that his father could not conquer
and vanquish and so the young Walker grew up believing that world was a place that harbored
little if anything to be feared, the only thing to be feared was in fact Walker himself, his own
father. The rest of the world was a safe and accommodating adventure.
Walker knew how the world could change. And he knew that life could change like the
world did, like the weather did, which was capricious and unkind.
Walker had a chiseled and sunhardened handsomeness to his face. He had the look of a
Hollywood cowboy, rough, rugged, leathered, oiled, slender and wiry. His eyebrows pushed into
deep furrows in his forehead. His black hair was always neatly greased and combed, the part in
his hair like a razor cut through bloodless flesh. A thin pencil moustache darkened his upper lip.
His neck was tan and sinewy and held his head up with defiant purpose.
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It wasnt looks that attracted women to him. Some said he looked like a Jew, some said
he had some Italian in him, some said some Persian, some said he must have some nigger blood
in him. But, it wasnt his looks that attracted the other sex. Women were attracted to the look in
his eyes, the faint panting of his nostrils, the slight wetness on his skin, his fear, they were
attracted to his fear like mosquitoes to the radiance of body heat.
It wasnt his intelligence. One did not look at Walker and wonder what was this man
thinking. He had an old country look to his face one that was creased like an old leather glove
yet uncrossed by thought, at least not until necessary, but when necessary the thoughts, real and
effective, were abundant and forceful. Walker had one thing, he had a dream. Walker had a
dream of building something, building something great, something that had never been built
before, something he would have liked to talk about it excited him so much, but of which he
never talked about as he never came to the point of forming a verbal idea of what it was he
would build that would in fact alter the world.
How, if one were to give Walker a philosophy this may be it: there is only one life, this
one, which is being played out with murderous certainty.

***

How Alicias past was kept in the attic of a one story farmhouse on the plains of the
Midwest. In the attic of the house is this story, or at least the story I am trying to tell. The story
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is real, but what I am telling is made up for the most part, perhaps has nothing to do with the real
story, but as such it is an account that draws its breath so to speak from the elements and
individual aspects in that attic, in that house, in that place.
Forgotten or forgiven, what remains of her story is in this attic. Such are the things
collected and organized here, such as the things that are wrapped and boxed and stacked and
piled here. Such are the things that are displayed and hung and tucked away and hidden here.
Such are the things on racks and in boxes, in drawers and hung from the rafters here. There is
love here, there is violence here. There is laughter here, there is pain here. There are dresses here,
row after row and rack after rack of dresses, some wrapped carefully in plastic, some smelling of
mothballs, some hung on satin hangers, many collecting the dust and becoming misshapen with
the weight of time. There are dresses of certain styles and dresses of certain periods, there are
dresses of heavy white materials with black vinyl belts and large black buttons, there are satin
dresses with frilly lengths and puffy sleeves, there are woolen dresses in grays and browns and
blacks, there are pink dresses with black collars and green dresses with white trimmings and
striped dresses and cottony sun dresses. There are promises here, there are forgotten vows and
unforgotten disappointments here, there are hopes on display here, there are times that could
have been and memories of what might have been. There are shoes, boxes and bins of shoes,
shoes carefully displayed on wooden racks made especially for shoes. There are high heeled
shoes and thick heeled shoes and low heeled shoes, there are sandals and there are slippers with
brilliant glassy stones clustered on the toes as if hatched beneath a shattered window, there are
boots, cowgirl boots made of ostrich, cowboy boots made of alligator, there are high calf length
boots and low ankle high boots. There are smiles and excitement and the smells of ancient sweat
here, and there are wrinkles and spills and stains and traces of tears here. There were hats here,

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all kinds of hats, some in boxes, some hats hung on wooden pegs. Velvet hats with long feathers
were here as were small white macram hats and hats made of felt with ribbons and fake gems
sliding off the spots of glue that held them. There were dolls in this attic, dolls with ceramic
faces and frilly dresses covered in plastic, here were dolls made of rags and dolls with dirty faces
that had been worn and dragged and played with for a lifetime or two, there were dolls that were
puppets, there were large stuffed animals, tigers and lions and bears and dogs; there were
ceramic animals and animals carved from wood and animals pulled into shape from once molten
glass and animals chipped from crystal, there were glass birds and ceramic alligators and clay
squirrels and fish made from tiles; there were boxes of old albums, old spinners, old forty-fives
and seventy-eights and vinyl LPs, there were recordings of Frank Sinatra, recordings of Benny
Goodman, recordings of The Lennon Sisters, recordings of Lawrence Welk, there was an album
of Miles Davis here. There is sacrifice and loss here, there is bitter recognition and foolish
acceptance, there is unbearable denial here. And in this attic there were shelves of items that one
could never imagine collecting, let alone organizing in such a fashion, there were collections of
rubber bands, sorted by color, sorted by thickness; there were collections of paper clips and
collections of pencils, some sharpened and some never readied for us; there were collections of
ballpoint pens; there were collections of erasers, some of them gum, come of them pink, some of
them a brittle amber in color; there were magazines, piles and piles of magazines, piles of
Readers Digest, piles of National Geographic, piles of Country Gentleman, piles of Life, piles of
Look; there were books, collections of Nancy Drew, collections of Sherlock Holmes, collections
of Readers Digest Condensed Books. There were secrets here, many secrets here. There were a
thousand things that did not fit into a collection, but were individual pieces picked up who knew
where, there were handkerchiefs embroidered with pictures of puppies, dinner plates with

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pictures of Disney characters, there were lamps that looked like palm trees, there were salt
shakers shaped like drunken Mexicans, there were wooden stage coaches and horses made from
felt; there was toy soldiers and old telephones; there were collections of thimbles made out of
ceramic and painted with gold paint, there were collections of spoons each of a different state;
there were collections of salt shakers, therere were shakers that looked like dancing mushrooms,
there were shakers that looked like rainbow trout, there were shakers that looked like dairy cows,
there were shakers that looked like antique cars, there were shakers of black Aunt Jemimas; there
were coin collections and jars filled with old nickels, old pennies, old dimes and old quarters;
there were small blue books filled with old silver coins, buffalo nickels and silver dollars; there
old toys, wind-up toys that danced and jigged, there were batter operated toys, there were race
cars, there were toy locomotives, there were radio operated airplanes, there was a bartender who
mixed drinks until his nose turned read, there were birds that perpetually dipped their beaks into
a pool of water. There were memories here, fingerprints of those who remembered, smudges of
those who remembered, chips and cracks and tears left there by the ones who remembered.
There were memories here, mementos, there were photos here, photos in frames set upon a table
top or vanity table, some hung on the walls, some gathered in photo albums, slipped between
sheets of plastic. Some photos had names and dates, some photos had dates only, some photos
had names only, some photos had a description such as Jennifer at Tom Eliots birthday party, or
Buddy on an air craft carrier off to Korea. There were feelings here, there were thoughts and
emotions here, all wrapped and sorted and left to dust, left to time. They were packed into a hull,
they rode a ship, they were afloat on a sea, they had great distances to travel before they would
be opened, before they would be revealed, before any questions would be asked.

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There was an album by Miles Davis here, Sketches of Spain, an album with a black
figure of a man on the cover, a small black man so black, so thin and so contorted behind his
trumpet that he looked as if only the charcoal essence remained of this man; this album cover
was worn and tattered; how many nights the lonely trumpets over Spain played at night; how
many times did this black man fill this sorrowful house with his sorrowful tones? The song that
begins with the castanets clattering chattering like the insects in the night, clattering in the night,
chattering.
How opinions here (perhaps mine as well but we are not talking about my opinions even
as they shape this story like rinds of an orange) were formed and repeated verbatim like epithets
etched into the stoniness of life, he was a good man, he was a scoundrel, he was a character, and
these lived with the bearer. Here men never really grow up, not in mind, not in intellect, not in
feeling. All men were good boys and all women were good girls, but not all good boys were
good men and not all good girls were good women, the cause of the last could have been fate,
could have been chance, could have been luck, could have been biology.

And the trumpet sang of what her heart knew not, the trumpet sang of
what her heart knew not but desired; the trumpet sang of what her heart
knew not, what her heart desired and what she knew she would never have;
the trumpet sang of what her heart knew not, what her heart desired and
what she felt was hers to keep; the trumpet sang of what her heart knew
not, of a land she knew not, of a place she would never know, a place she
felt was hers to keep; the trumpet sang of what her heart knew not, of a
place that was hers never forever.
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* * *

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What is to be known first of Alicia Walker I can provide and this was how she traveled
the road from high school beauty queen of milk white skin and raven hair to a worker in a battery
factory where her skin grew pocked and festered with chancres and boils, where her teeth
blackened and her hair thinned to but a faint smoky halo about her head. How she became squat,
round, close to the ground in such a way that she came to mimic the gnomes and trolls that she
planted in her yard. To understand Alicia Walker is to see how she lost any sense of her being
important in the world and to such an extent that she had no real care if she lived or died, and so
she could one day be attacked by a swarm of bees or find herself stranded in her car in the
middle of a cold winter night and not seem to care at all, neither shooing away the stinging bees
or seeking help on the freezing night.
There are always exceptions. In some cases, exceptions mean everything. In other cases
exceptions mean nothing. We cannot allow exceptions to rule our thinking. Yet we cannot
blindly overlook the exceptions that seem to disprove the rule. The exceptions may be the rule,
but exceptions do not rule the rule.

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Alicia Walker grew up in shadows. Shadows were the substance of life, the reflections of
what was known and unknown, the cover of safety and the lurking unknown. And so Alicia
Walker grew up in the strange shadows of her mothers delusion, grew up in a world that was
dark, dusty and cheap, but was also beautiful and dear, forming a split in her world that
eventually divided her mind and so she grew up to feel wanting of marriage but at the same time
disdainful of marriage, she grew up longing for love but was spiteful of love, she desired success
but was repulsed by success. And of this we will come to know more about.
The men who came to see Alicia Walker while she was a beauty queen came from all
strata of this Midwestern American town. Her radiance and beauty attracted the educated and
wealthy; her orneriness brought the debonair and the worldly who could not resist the challenge;
her reputation for being loose and wild brought her the boys who wished to be men; her swelling
ankles and freckled skin brought hope to the local boys that they too might be considered. She
wanted none of them.
Alicia Walker knew she was beautiful, and she was beautiful enough to have made
anyone happy, yet she was not happy, she was not unhappy because of her beauty, which actually
did in fact make her very happy, she was unhappy because she knew her beauty would not last
and she was not a person who could live and appreciate what she had in the present, all she could
think about was the fact that she would have to live with something different in the future than
what she had now.
Alicia sought freedom over love, sought independence over anything else and so
willingly went to work on an assembly line during the war, where she lost her girlish ways and
then lost her caring about her girlish ways which meant she lost her need for those girlish ways

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and so the dresses, the hats, and the shoes were wrapped in plastic and stored up in the attic as
she no longer had need for any of them.
Walker offered Alicia nothing but revenge pure and simple upon her father, this was the
only way to hurt her father, by torturing herself beyond anything her father could have imagined.
As for Alicia Walker, as time went on it became clear that she was not right, that something
inside of her head had finally developed to the point of expression, something that would disrupt
all that had been planned for generations. But Walker made her happy too.
Women here are born dependent and only become independent when their husbands lose
their manhood and so the woman must become what the husband had promised to be and should
promise to be but lost as he grew older and so the woman, the wife, she has no choice but to be
the one to acquire and uphold those traits of independence the man gave up as he grew older and
she will continue to have to uphold this independence even as the husband grows older and ever
more dependent until she is caring again for a child, an infant, until she is caring for him like she
would have to care for a baby.

And the trumpets peal is one of loneliness, of calling, a lament, the

castanets in the background like the insects outside, like tongue clicks and
teeth clicks urging us along; the trumpets peal is one of loneliness, of
longing, the castanets rattling softly their reminder of things forgotten but
stored away; one of loneliness, the trumpets peal is of a place unknown, of
a place imagined and wished for, of a place where the insects rattle like
castanets making the air shimmer with your presence and a voice calls out
softly.
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***

When Alicia Walker chose Walker as her mate, a darkness of a kind fell over B, and all
who lived there knew that all hope was gone, not because of evil or the triumph of evil over
good, but because they now saw that hope was nothing but a fraud.
She wore a red dress at her wedding and blackened her hair to a ravens sheen. Walker
wore a white tuxedo with white patent leather shoes and a white top hat dressed with a grey
velvet sash. In one of those gestures that defines a man by painting him as enslaved to his
irrational desires, Walker whipped the horses drawing their marriage carriage to the people
waiting at the reception, throwing the new Alicia Walker from the seat and onto the ground, and
causing him to cut his hand to the bone, the blood deeply staining his white tuxedo.
How quickly Walker acquired a status from nothing, having nothing to give him rank or
station he nonetheless achieved one by a meticulousness that he applied to all and everything that
he touched with his hands, he crafted it from wood, from metals, he painted it, craved it, drew it,
built it, grew it from the ground, nurtured it by the time he was finished building his house and
his barn, he had achieved a position of recognition and admiration that would take him years to
destroy.
When Walker married Alicia Callaway, Walker went from being a nobody, or at most an
enigma, a ghost, a gypsy, a man who had no place, no role, he went from this place of nothing
and uncertainty to being a wholly different kind of a man. It is uncertain how or why this
transformation took place. Some say it happened within the community in order for everyone to
make sense of the marriage in the first place. Some say it occurred due to the mysterious nature
of Walker, a dark, gypsy sort of a man, who had appeared like a quixotic apparition and came
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bearing a set of silent but leviathan skills in the ways of building and creating. Some say it came
from Alicia Walker herself, not in anything she said, but in what she conveyed from her person
as if she had been imbued with a sudden power and nobility, as if she had indeed been
transformed and so with her transformation were born the myths about Walker.
Walker began to substantiate his own myth by taking to building their home with his own
hands on the ten acres of land left to him by the Widow. The men who watched him at the
beginning of his build said it could not be done. He went about doing it all himself, digging the
basement, framing in the foundations, tying the rebar, pouring the concrete that he mixed in a
wheelbarrow a sack at a time. Other men watched him as he cut the floor joists, set them in
place with the help of his horses, and tied them in to a side; as he began framing the outer walls,
building them first on the leveled ground then pull them up with a pulley he tied to a nearby tree.
Then a few men stepped in and helped him raise the walls, curious how Walker had managed to
build the walls in such a way, and then they helped with the trusses that would go across the
garage roof, these men amazed at the techniques Walker employed to strengthen the beams and
tie in the truss so solidly into place. More men came to watch and see for themselves the
manners and techniques that this strange and silent man used in all aspects of his building,
manners and techniques that seemed superior and more modern yet at the same time more
ancient than their own, as if this man Walker possessed some knowledge that they had long
forgotten. They came to watch and learn and they came to help bringing cement mixers and
sledge hammers as they poured the cement floor in the basement, as they leveled the cement
floor of the first floor and raised the roof over the entire house. Men and women had joined to
put in the windows and doors, to being to fill in the asbestos and nail the plywood to the wall
studs, to put up the plaster board and layer the siding and being to layer the shingles on the roof.

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By the time the house was done, done to the point that all it needed was the finishing plaster on
the inside walls and paint on the windows and doors, not only had a town come together to help
the Walkers, but Walker had cemented his own reputation as a man unlike any other.
When a tractor fell over on Farmer Schmidt, the first person who stopped after seeing
Schmidt from the road called out for Walker. When the city council wanted a new design for the
sign on Route 80, the four members in attendance unanimously thought of Walker. When the
electricity went out and the pigs began to die in the heat of their pens at Strabbs Pig Farm the
call went out to Walker. When the television reception went out in the middle of the college
game, the phone number the bartender asked for was Walkers. When a horse lost half its leg in
a freak accident with a hay binder, the only person anyone could think of was Walker. When it
was predicted that tornadoes would touch down upon the city and that storms would come and
carry away the crops and animals and all kinds of insects would descend on flesh and plant, a
woman fell to the ground and wept how could this happen to a town with a man such as Walker.
When a child got stuck in a carnival ride, the mothers screams went out to Walker. When an
airliner crashed in the cornfields out past Simmons fields, the whispers of the onlookers who
dared go no closer to the billowing smoke of the burning wreckage was of asking for the
whereabouts of Walker, surely he would go forth.
Unlike the others, she had not been drawn to the fear in him, the fear in him was not an
attractive force. She was attracted to his eyes where she saw not fear but sorrow, a heaviness, a
sad and deeply rooted weariness, she saw in those eyes a mans trip far across the earth, she
could measure his wanderings, their length and solitary hours, in his eyes, she could plump how
far his soul had traveled.

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Walker told Alicia Walker how he hated her nigger music. Walker told her how she hated
that blaring trumpet, that blaring noise, that blaring nothing but nigger noise. Alicia told Walker
that he, Walker, looks like the nigger man on those albums. Walker told her that she should go
live with niggers then or go be with her nigger loving brother who gave her the music.
The misery of Walker and Alicia Walker is what made them a solid and permanent part of
B. They took in friends on the weekend. In the morning Walker drank coffee while listening to
the farm report on the radio, made himself eggs which he ate with ketchup and coffee, smoked
his cigarettes and looked out the windows as dawn soaked its way across the horizon. He was a
welder during the day, worked on his own, a free man who picked his own jobs whether they be
mending or making fences, gates, railroad cars, tractors, pulleys, roofs. At night he worked in
the barn, drank the wine that he made and talked to his horses as if her were playing poker with a
bunch of buddies.
Church had vanished from the Walkers lives, not though any willful decision but slowly
until it no longer had any function or physical form in their existence; the farm became their
church although there was nothing religious about the farm, if anything the farm had a pagan
element to it, which protected it and its inhabitants from the God who came to visit the living in
the manifestation of weather and death. Only through death and destruction did God show his
hand.
Then there is the story of Paul who was not a Walker or a Callaway, but a story that needs
to be told as well. Paul Schaefer was a railroad worker who had once lived next to Alicia Walker
and Walker on a farm that had long since torn down and replaced with a small shopping mall.
Paul had pocketed some good retirement money as he called it from that sale, not nearly as much
as he could get now or if he had had some smarts about him, but like he said there are some
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things that are never gone to change.

And once sometime after Walker had died, some years

after that event, Paul came by Alicia Walkers house with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He
had gotten a haircut and even allowed the barber to remove the few hairs that had sprouted from
his nose. He had scrubbed his skin and tried to remove a few of the blackheads that had spotted
his face for decades. He brushed his teeth, put on some cologne that had not been uncorked for
more than twenty years since before his wife had died and he rang the bell at As home. Oh my
Paul! Alicia said, I aint seen you in more than fifteen darn years. I knows it darn well enough I
guess, Paul said, and so here I is like a fool anyway coming here to ask you to marry me. They
married a few weeks afterwards and Paul moved in with Alicia Walker to the Walker home.
Together they were happier than any couple ever could admit.

***

The question is, how did Walker acquire a rank and status with nothing to substantiate it
in family or land or other holdings? He achieved it by a meticulousness that he applied to all he
touched with his hands, he shaped, he built, he crafted it. And they respected it. For what it was.
The Walker home was small but representational. It represented all the possibilities that
life had to offer, it didnt need to be bigger, any more complex, as in its elements and the
arrangement of the houses elements were all the possibilities of the world and so like a dream,
but a dream that could fail.
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She lived for sixty five years in this house, until her face came to look like the skin of a
chickens foot.
There was a religious tendency in this town of B and there was a pagan tendency in this
town and there was a scientific tendency. There was a spiritual tendency and there was a
tendency based on superstition. There was some tendency to think in scientific terms but there
was an equal if not greater tendency to think in terms that were instinctual, perhaps derived more
from another source than one that might be called scientific, and might be better called religious
than anything else, a pagan religiosity if anything of any kind. And all this was easy to see. On
the lawns of the homes were the many items that represented their daily homage, the deer cast
from cement, the plaster squirrels and chipmunks, the cast iron turtles, the plastic birds tied to
tree limbs and gutters, plastic owls nailed to the rooftops and eves, the plastic alligators that were
set near small wooden bridges spanning make believe streams. And here there were the little
gnomes, the elves and fairies set amidst the gardens and shrubs, there were the knee high
characters from Disney, there were the plastic fish and squid and other creatures tied to the
fences. Come Easter and the gardens and driveways and fences and patios were covered with
even a greater number of animals: bunnies, chickens, baby chicks; come Halloween and the yard
and house were filled with vampires and bats and werewolves and witches and caldrons and
zombies; come Christmas and the entire place was outfitted with blinking lights and displays of
Santa and his reindeer, elves and their presents, polar bears and their cubs, giant snowmen in
their scarves and hats. And so it was a religiosity that was tied to the land more than to the
Church, superstition flowing from lips more than scripture.

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The inclination here was to recreate not to copy the fashionable, painted walls were made
to look like wood, columns painted to look like marble, designs meticulously recreated in
pattern, texture and quality.
At holidays the families would gather, the children would retreat after dinner and lie in
front of the TV, the men would take to chairs and slowly fall asleep, while the women would
gather around the large horseshoe shaped table in the breakfast nook to talk. Talk always began
with the niceties, with the remarks about some and some and whats his name that commended,
praised, repeated an age old admiration. But wine or no wine, the real talk would not get started
until it became a spirited one about all that was bad, all that was twisted, abnormal and evil.
Winter came upon the land and the home and covered the trees with sheaths of knobby
ice, the snow piled up on the thinnest of surface, fences and wires, growing to impossible
thicknesses, inches would turn to feet of snow that covered everything leaving only the antlers of
the cement deer still peering above the crusty surface, a few twigs from the bushes along the
driveway barely stretching forth for some sun. Sleet planted its faceprints against the windows,
ice covered the sidewalks and tugged unmercifully on the canopies no one brought in from off
the porches. From foggy windows one could burrow a hole with the side of your hand and peer
out into what was nothing but a grave, perhaps a few birds bouncing across the snow like pine
cones being tossed in the wind. The wind would come and surround the house, embrace it
around one side and coo down the chimney sweep. The wind would seem to buck up against the
floor board and the rafters would creak, the walls pinch and snap, while icy branches scratched at
the glass window panes that separated you from all that was death.

Outside a dog shivered

curled into the snow.

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Animals were but things but like rocks but like clods of dirt. Somehow you were able to
ignore the eyes that looked at your eyes, the skin that shivered when it was tickled and touched,
you were able to ignore the queer and imperfect but obvious attempts to communicate, you were
able to ignore the life that was protected by that purse of bones and tissue and skin and fur which
you shot, cut, killed, slaughtered, broke, maimed, drowned or clubbed like a fly that bothered
you with its incessant banging at the window.

* * *

Walker painted photos of his infant son as if to create something both more modern and
something older than it was; he painted a beauty and a glow into the boys eyes and cheeks which
were not to be found in the ordinarily sullen face, and he painted a nobility and an intelligence
and a refinement in the boys expression and posture that did not exist, as if painting both a
future he knew he would never have and a past he would never know.
There were the large ways of Walker and then there were the small ways of Walker. The
large ways of Walker were the ways he had of making himself a part of the world and thereby
conquering the world in his own way. The small ways of Walker were the ways in which he
sought to steal a piece or a bit from the world for his own and thereby removed himself from the
world and made himself smaller and more insignificant. These were the large and small ways
that his son, the young Walker, came to slowly understand in his father.

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Religion

Revelation

Rebellion
Often when as a boy the young Walker was out with his father, his father would do
something such as flick a whip at another persons horse, or if they were walking on a street in
town, Walker would flick a burning cigarette butt into the open door of a shop. This made the
young Walker uncomfortable because he was never sure his father would not get caught and he
always wondered why his father did these things and he knew that he could not ask and he knew
that if he did ask he would get both that crooked Walker smile as well as a reprimand if not now
then later when his father would flick him with a whip or toss a cigarette butt into his hair.
From this the young Walker evolved from believing as children believed that the world
was as his father said was to believing that the world was outside and separate from his father,
and in fact came to believe that the world was something outside and separate to himself as well,
something that one planned a strategy against, that one decided was against and contrary to ones
own best interest at least part of the time if not most of the time, and so began the process by
which the young Walker came to prepare and thereby came to understand the world.
Walker taught the boy how to use tools, taught him both the skill and beauty as well as
the cruelty of tools; how to create something was to destroy something else; how to create a
beautiful birdhouse was to destroy the wood you built it from; how to create a design out of
wrought iron was to destroy the design you held in your mind.

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The young Walker can feel what it is that he gained from his father: it is a stone that will
not move from its place, the hard center around which all else will grow, the seed of an ugly
pearl.
The young Walkers wife, Jeri Lynn, was an unfortunate specimen lacking a chin and
seemingly a mind and personality as well; she was narrowed at the shoulders and wide at the
hips, her arms and legs too short for her body, her feet were long and the toes splayed. Jeri Lynn
had no noticeable or demonstrable passion, no interest, no abilities as either a woman or
potentially a wife, and so her sudden courtship to the young Walker was a surprise to most of all
her family. Jeri Lynn was with child before she married the young Walker, pregnant to a man
who had raped and beat her, left her for dead, who left her without much of a mind thereafter.
Jeri Lynns family did not approve of her marriage to the young Walker, believing that
their daughter for what had been done to her was so far below anyones rank and station in the
world that shed be nothing but mistreated, abused and eventually hurt and even destroyed if she
came to be owned by someone else, she was especially far below what they esteemed of the
Walkers status if not by family name then by what they had built around them. But Jeri Lynn
did not care a bit about her family and their fears.
Jeri Lynns inner thoughts began to come out when she married the young Walker. Walker
was by this time dead.
Jeri Lynn and the young Walker eloped. She left with the young Walker as a chinless,
hare brained child and returned as a mother and a wife with a solid, stronger will than any could
have imagined.
After the young Walker and Jeri Lynn were married he started to think about building his
own house. This process began in his mind for first they had to live in a small four room rental
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which Jeri Lynn fixed up with curtains and bright paint and flowers and small trees that she
planted out along a brick walk. The young Walker did nothing to improve that small house for
he was preoccupied in his mind with the house he was building. He wrote down no plans, drew
nothing out on paper, he simply collected his thoughts in his head and from there he began to
architect what would be one day his home. His father had taught him everything he needed to
know, he knew how to dig the foundation and cellar, he knew how to put in the supporting walls,
how to lay the floors, how to put in the joists using mortise and tendon joints without glue or
wedge, he knew how to join parquetry, he knew how to create the tall double doorways, French
windows, he knew how to create space and support with the proper engineering, he knew how to
bend the metal and set it properly on concrete or on wood, he knew how to set the double walled
safety glass, he knew how to build in the extra support that would protect them from twisters and
tornadoes, he knew how to double set the eaves so that no wind would blow them away, he knew
how to lay the roofing tiles, how to cement and fortify the chimneys, he knew how to build the
all glass davenport, how to level and set the windows so that they would bend with the house
without breaking, how to set the foundations between pads of hard rubber so that they would
shift with the settling of the ground; he know how to collect water and how to set up glass panels
between black PVC so as to heat water for the shower or bath, he knew how to dig and set the
water pump, he knew who to dig the septic tank, he knew who to irrigate the gardens and corps
and he knew how to run electricity from the house to the barn and to the work shed, he knew
how to split plumbing between floors of the house, he knew how to fix the oldest of tractors be
they John Deeres or Sears Roebuck, he knew how to overhaul a diesel engine, how to replace
brakes, how to caulk tiles, how to plaster walls, how to fence in a pasture, how to erect a barn,
how to dig a basement, how to level a driveway, he knew how to pour and smooth cement, he

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knew how to tar a gravel road, he knew how torch cut a chassis and weld a engine block, he
knew how to plant strawberries, he knew how to grow and harvest corn, he knew how to cut and
stack hay, he knew how to stud a horse, he knew how to sheer a sheep, he knew how to slaughter
a pig, he knew how to kill a chicken or a calf, how to unhook a catfish, he knew how to capture a
snake, he knew how to treat a snake bite, he knew how to make a fire from stones and dry grass,
he knew how to predict the rain and prepare for a winter of snow, how to shoe a horse, how to
change a transmission in a 1954 Ford Truck, he knew how to kill a rabid dog with a piece of
string, he knew how to put in an electric garage door, he knew how to light the Christmas lights
all the way down the road and back, he knew how to rewire anything electrical and rebuild
anything mechanical, he was as good with cutting the most delicate designs out of wood as he
was twisting the most impressive shapes out of iron, he could cut and roll sheet metal into any
shape or form, and he could create the most exquisite formations out of cement and plaster. All
this he learned from Walker and all this he knew and all this he did all in his head while he
waited until he could build his own house.
What was remarkable about the young Walkers house when he finally did build it was
not so much in what it was but in what it was not. It was not a Walker house. It was not low and
tight to the ground like Walker built his home, it was not tight and logical in it dimensions, it was
not economical, it was not created so as to conserve any and all resources that it consumed. No,
the young Walkers house was large and expansive just as Walkers house was small and
compact, it was spacious and wasteful just as Walkers was economical, it was grand and
taunting just as Walkers was squat and inconsequential. The young Walkers house had tall
ceilings and exposed rafters whereas Walkers house had low and plastered ceilings. The young
Walkers house had broad doorways and long windows what opened immensely into each room,

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while Walkers hose had small windows that would be bolted tight against the storms and winds.
The young Walkers house was space enshrined, in fact it was nothing but space, he applied no
decoration and Jeri Lynn did little to add to any of the long, tall walls that lined each room. The
rooms were sparse with furniture and the entries and exits dominated them, the doorways, the
stairways and the windows that opened to the outside. Indeed there was little logic in the young
Walkers house and you could get lost going from one room to the next as there seemed to be no
way to maneuver the hallways and doorways and passageways without finding yourself in a
destination not only of a different room but sometimes onto a different floor as well. Balconies
suddenly cast you over a living room, stairways suddenly opened up into a pair of bedrooms,
porches cantilevered out over the driveway and looked towards the barn. There was no way to
determine how the layout had been decided, but one was certain that the young Walker had
perhaps spent far too long with these plans in his head for although he had built a magnificent
and palatial farm house, he had clearly combined too many thoughts into one idea.
The young Walkers house was not made to protect, it was not made out of fear of the
world, fear of the outside, it was a statement to the contrary, it stated the lack of fear, it dared the
world around it but daring to be as large and as open and as nonthreatened of the world around it
as the world was of him. He was not going to lie and wait for the winds to pass over head, he
was not going to hunker down and fear the twisters, the hail, the snow, the rain, he had built a
city with his home, he had built a ranch inside these walls, he had built his own ark, his own
ship, there was nothing that would threaten or contain him.
For the young Walker, reality was being cut off from reality, first with the home a good
five miles from the nearest neighbor and then through his own attempts to further his isolation by

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building what he called his laboratory in the basement of the home, all an effort it seemed to
make up for the lack of imagination his father had had to create the same distance.
The young Walker learned that he was not controlled by his father. How he learned that
is not known. But it came with time and when it came it came powerfully so. And it came years
after Walker had died.
Walker was deep down was a religious man who took his sins and sinning seriously and
thereby knew he was playing a game, building a rising tower of sin in fact, that would
completely overshadow any good he had ever accumulated but such was his way that he chose
not to address this disparity. This religiosity of Walker was not unnoticed or unseen by his son
and probably had all the more impact for its removal from a church or a thick book and so
combined with the blatant discrepancy between life and this religiosity was all the more potent,
troubling and so would have an impact far greater than any education or indoctrination. This
religion was in the end the only feelings the young Walker had for his father if nothing else the
fear it imparted of something left undone, something out of balance, an error that the young
Walker feared would have to be corrected or ultimately answered to.
Jeri Lynn as a girl never went to church and had no apparent religious inclinations yet
once she married she would not be found more than a long reach from her Bible and every
Sunday was a day of worship as if she sensed the young Walkers feelings of doom and
responsibility.
The young Walker and Jeri Lynn had only one child, and so with the young Walker ends
the legacy of the Walkers. Later, mother, daughter and granddaughter would gather themselves
unto themselves and set forth, leaving a past behind.

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Walker saw increasingly in his son the reincarnation of himself, a transmogrification that
Walker both despised and glorified as when he painted the photos of his son in glowing pastels
giving the skin a glow, the eyes a radiance, the background a regal tone and quality so that one
might see a portrait of a Buddha rather than a welders son. Walker may have relished this idea
as it offered an escape, a relief in that his son would have to carry the imbalance and deal with
the discrepancies of life that he, Walker, had carried. The young Walker was never part of
Walkers daily living, always a part that would take effect after Walkers death and so his
resentment as he would never see the results and culmination of all he had done, good, evil or
indifferent.
Mothers need to leave their sons, this must happen. To do so is a difficult task, for it is to
abandon what is most vulnerable and to accept the ways and mercy of the world to be gracious
and kind and accepting to this soft and fragile being that will change and grow and so become
something the mothers eventually detests as much as she detests the man she married.
Jeri Lynn was the force that drove the young Walker from his mother. A child needs to
leave his mother. The time always comes. It can happen easily or it can happen with force and
hurt. Jeri Lynn was the force that broke the young Walker from his mother, Alicia Walker, Jeri
Lynn was the force that spun them further into their orbit of independence that marks the lives of
the people here, the young Walker would not have done this himself, an only child he was, and
so too much in ownership not only of his mother but of the things that surrounded her, besides he
had not the strength or the wherewithal or the courage to break those bonds that need to be
broken, wrapped even tighter around him by Alicias sickness.
In the young Walkers house, in the living room was a painting hung so high on the tallest
wall that a ladder would have been required to straighten its crooked perch.
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Jeri Lynn insisted that the young Walker come to church and so he sat through the
embarrassment of it all, of the ceremony, of sitting there mouthing the words that had no
meaning, singing songs that had no purpose, knowing that eyes were upon him since he looked
so ridiculous and looked even more ridiculous in his self-consciousness, but he continued to
mouth the words and read the book and sit by his wifes side.

* * *

The men of B were men of substance, men of meat and potato substance, broad, large,
full men who filled out their clothes, who filled out their shoes and who cut a swath through life
just as they cut a swath through the corn fields and hay fields. In comparison, Walker was a man
of little substance, Walker was thin and small and nearly nonexistent compared to the other men
of substance of B; he did not have the size or substance of the other men of B, he did not have
the weight or mass that formed and shaped and defined the other men and so in a way one could
actually say Walker had evolved, he had made the transition to being a new kind of man while
the others with their broad shoulders and thick legs and barrel shaped torsos, with their bulbous
heads and fatty faces with small unfinished eyes, small mouths and blubbery chins, compared to
these men of B, Walker was a modern man, a man who had mutated and perhaps even evolved
away from the population of men which to the contrary did not make him feel superior, to be
further removed from the peasants who had come here, no, in fact it made him smaller in stature,
in appearance, in existence.
The biggest fear anyone had was not knowing what lay hidden inside a person; what
hidden thing could one day be revealed, leading to consequences both unknown and probably
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terrible in nature, such was the nature of the unknown, regardless of how closely it set to the
known and knowable.
The hearts of the heartland: what was American about all these so American Americans?
What was it? In their face? In their bodies? Their clothes? Their manners? Their time? Their
place in time?
By the time you decide if you know better than me at these things it will be too late your
chancell be gone. These things cant be decided so. Doesnt matter to me. I will never know
and for all its worth my not knowing is best if I knew then youd only deny it and rassle with
me about it.
So Walker spoke, but Walker spoke to no one about his dream but to his horses.
I imagine there is a thing ifn I could make it, no, ifn I could conjure it up in my mind so
that I could then see it fully and before me so, that would be such a thing that as small as it may
be within it, built into its complexity, built into its structure would be not only it as itself but all
things that could be made with it. I know, it is hard to explicate, it requires a engineering of it in
order to see it, I know, and that is why I aint got a start on it yet, you see, cuz it aint nothing
more than an idea I got, one that I gotta sit down with one day and realize to its fullest, and so
you are probably saying well you are sitting there Walker, you are waiting in a way that is
probably most suitable for you to fulfill this task, so why not utilize this here time and
opportunity and realize this thing you got in your head, and you are right, as right as a dumb
horse can be, but what you dont realize cuz you is but a dumb horse is that sometimes a man has
to take his time with an idea, sometimes it aint a matter of squeezing it out like some turd no he
got to let it fester inside there, let it manifest as they say, you try to squeeze out something that
dont wanta come out and what do you get huh? Hemorrhoids is what you get. But you are a
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dumb horse and I aint never seen a horse with no hemorrhoids. And also what you dumb horses
dont know is that sometimes an idea can have a frightening element to it, an element that wants
you to keep it in the dark for a while, course a horse never bothers much with ideas in the first
place not like a dog which gets some ideas in its head and tries to act on them, like ol Pal whod
think he knew I left the barn and so he can sneak in and eat the bologna sandwich I left in there,
something he wouldnt touch if I was around, and so I seem to be leaving knowing I am only
doing so to trick ol Pal and so I see him, there goes ol Pal right around to my study here and it
takes him a moment before he puts up his paws on my desk and he is just about ready to take off
with my bologna sandwich when I catch him with the whip right across the snout, a little too
hard I guess as it split him open some and so now instead of bologna hes licking blood off his
nose in the corner there, but no I aint seen a horse have any such ideas, not really. And so
anyway that is how it is with my idea that I have, there could be something a little frightening
about it, something that makes it better kept in the darkness so to speak, but this I know, this idea
of mine is a thing of ultimate and permanent change, thats right, cuz even though I cannot fully
manifest it in anyway, this thing which has in it not only the pure elements of itself but all the
greater elements of what it can make in itself something that is ultimately and permanently
changing upon the world, no doubt about it. Now I aint talking about something like snowflakes
or even molecules or anything like that. Them are all things that have been thinked about
before, they are all ideas that we now accept as common things and so we dont even think about
them at all. No, what I am considering aint ever been revealed and as such would probably be
met as blasphemy actually, that is what I would be a heretic, no one would believe me, no one
would want to believe me, that is how we human beings are, we is always fighting anything that
is new like that, anything that cant be said to already exist, we dont want to know about it, men

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kill over just a few things in life, they kill over women first, then they kill over money or pride
next, and finally they kill over things they dont understand. Just them three things. You never
see a man kill over a horse or a dog. He might beat up the other fella some, but he wont kill
him. You wont see a man kill over a job, not a man in his right mind anyway, and you wont see
that man kill over a piece of land. No we got ways to work out those difference of opinions. But
he will kill over a woman, and he will kill over you taking his money or his self from him and he
will kill when he dont know something so much it scares him. So you could say if I were not
careful that someone, somebody could kill me over this idea. It aint got nothing to do with his
woman, it aint got nothing to do with his pride, but it sure is something he dont know and he
cant figure out and so he mightn just take up and kill me for that. That is how men be. But you
know how long Ive been riding with this idea of mine, you know can accept it as it is, that it will
not disturb mens souls the way other unknown things disturb their souls, and it wont cause men
to kill and it wont cause men to fight and to go to war, and be it a house, or a plant or a moon.
Thats what I got in me, thats what I got, its in there like it causes destruction on this here earth
as this idea come manifest has a purpose and that is to foster creation, not destruction, it is to
reveal the simplest element of all that can be created and created rightfully, well I aint going to
give it up, let it stay in this head as some kind of unresolved situation or such until the time is
right, until the time comes, then it will come forth all manifest and real, its substance will be
revealed, its nature will be revealed, its function and purpose will be revealed and hopefully such
a thing will occur at a time when all it right
How did morals originate, evolve, erupt, effuse, leak out of a man like Walker? They
came to him without training, without predecessor or precursor, they came to him without
example, without thought, written it seemed in his DNA, emerging from some biological

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substratum, the same foaming tissue that caused him to throw up, to defecate to sweat, to feel
cold and feverish.

Coruscate
Scintillate
Irradiate

Walker knew nothing of the future and cared not a spit for the past. This put him firmly
and ineluctably into the present which was where all the demons were he needed to fight.

* * *

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This is not a womans history but a mans history, perhaps even a boys history told
through a man. A womans history as I have read may be more detailed in certain aspects, more
rhythmic, repeating and repetitive in the way that crocheting is repeating and repetitive, both
necessary and soothing and yet purposeful and necessary. A mans history is rarely soothing,
rarely repeating and repetitive, more of a destructive event that tears things apart in an attempt to
put things together. More of a break it to see how it works before trying to put it back together
again. We all have to operate according to our natures, according to our predispositions, we all
have to do as we were made and created to do. And so I will not crochet nothing here, nor will I
weave as gently and as effectively as a woman may weave a history, but then this is not hers but
a mans history.
These families that we are to learn about were families of loss, of destructiveness. Each
generation is always trying to rebuild out of the ashes. Walker left his family nothing but debt,
nothing but a name that was more a curse, more a snarl, more an ugly spat. Walker left his son
with more than this debt, he left him with the idea of the Midwest, the isolation, the nothingness,
the distance between entities that was to be calculated and increased. Walker was a failure, not a
man to look up to, not a man to emulate, and so his child had to recreate the idea of a parent for
himself, had to devise anew.

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B was a part of the vast plains where entropy was the rule, the governing force. If there
was a center here it was a center for dissipation. What was created here was a pattern of
disintegration and destruction. Metals rusted here, plants and animals died here, buildings faded
and crumbled here, stone become pitted and weak and crumbled into sand here, lakes turned
green, then brown and died here, winds tore apart anything that was built, rains eroded anything
the was carved from the land, snow caked and splintered anything that was lift to its mercy.
Twisters ripped asunder even the strongest structures, floods buried the most valuable beneath its
mud, at night darkness
Survival of the fittest was not a rule of law here. Evolution only operates in a dynamic
system, not in one that is declining, drifting off into some kind of oblivion. And so other rules
took precedence here, laws other than scientific laws, laws other than religious laws, laws other
than manmade laws.
You cannot write a history for a place and a people that have nothing but an end, the
beginning having been lost, more than simply forgotten it is lost, its land is being swept to sea on
great rivers, its dust is being swept to foreign skies, it has already been reduced to but a flat and
level field, no mountains or crevices which are the sign of newer earth, only flat, bald and older
earth, no valleys or hills that show at least a old sign of the earths impatience, broad plains
Everything here is repetition, each day is a repeat of the past, each person is a character
one already knew, each birthday, each anniversary, each car crash a thing that can be compared
with another either recently or long gone. Each season brings the slaughter of hogs, the cutting
of hay, the picking of corn, the bottling of jam, the shoeing of horses, the killing of chickens, the
tuning up on the tractor and the truck, the painting of a fence, there was living on land that was
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your fathers land, there was becoming as your father was, there was begetting a son that would
become as you were, there was the rhythms of life, the births, the marriages the death that flowed
time after time in the same motions and oscillations.

* * *
Life here was a simple reduction of everything to the meaningless yet ineluctable cycle of
life and death. Everywhere, everything: flies and spiders, winter and spring, planting and
harvesting, birth and death. Everything had a beginning and with that beginning everything
marched ineluctably towards its end.

Dialed 911
Put on Hold
Sure wish I had
That gun I sold

Here a girl was brutally raped.

* * *

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There are strangers in B, and sometimes strangers are people who have lived in B for
years, but because of their ways, because of their failure to contribute in some way to the
surroundings in any other way than a selfish way, these people become and stay strangers. One
person who lived in B was such a stranger, this old man lived in a small house near the edge of
town and only a few miles from Walkers. Along the dusty gravel road he would walk most days,
during the colder months wrapped in a heavy black coat and with a furskin hat pulled over his
head, ears and face. In warmer months he wore a pair of overalls, as if he were hankering to be a
farmer, Walker would say, with a straw hat on his head, his face round and pale and trimmed in
white hair. The stranger walked but he never stopped to say hello. In fact, Alicia said, it did not
seem none that he walked either, for you never seen him walking, just seen him standing and
looking, staring down a field of corn or a mess of hay feed as if there were something to see in
all that, stopping to contemplate the sky or the same barn or the same tree as before, as if things
changed and were different from day to day.
They knew the man was a writer, that was all. Wonder how he eats, Alicia asked. Dont
matter none how he eats, Walker would say, if he starved then that is probably all such a writer
deserves. What else is he contributing that he should not starve after all?

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Sometime the man appeared with his wife -- it is not his wife, Alicia would say, he is not
married to her, she is his companion is what they say. His companion? Walker would say, why
would a man take a woman for a companion?
But when he appeared with his companion, the woman companion, it was she who
walked not him. While he stood and contemplated a post or a tree she walked ahead of him her
head down determined in her walk, studying her feet like all walkers should do. And why do
they walk you think? Alicia would say. Cuz they got no car, Walker would say. But they are
walking to nowhere and then back again, Alicia would say. Then they come the next day and do
it all again. Seems like what a writer would do, Walker would say. I been thinking I should
warn them about the Altschulers dogs over yonder, Alicia would say, them being a perty ornery
slug of dogs that I wouldnt want to come upon them on foot like that. Perhaps theyll run on
into Altschulers dogs, Walker would say, and then they will discover that walking aint all so
good for you after all.
From our house, the writer said, there is really only one way to walk if one cares to take a
walk, and without a walk at least once a day the feeling of being a shut in can begin to overtake
you like a form of fever, ones life becoming a jar of preserves in the cellar, a spider web spun
and respun between the panes of efficiency glass. But if we were to walk towards town we
quickly reach a bridge where we have to choose either to walk along a path in the dirt below the
bridge and cross a small creek that sometimes rises after a rain or winter melt and risk falling in
the mud or twisting an ankle on the rocks, or we can walk across the bridge which has no path
for pedestrians and is busy enough that invariably there will be a car and truck approaching in
both directions and no room for us to pass. A situation I want to avoid. So the only way to walk
is the other way, the direction away from town and away from the bridge where after about a
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mile the paved road gives way to a gravel road and from there you walk further and further into
the seas of corn and hay, where the houses and barns float so sadly and magnificently like ships,
where the silos rise like perpetual erections and water towers look like giant drops of water
betraying all we know about gravity.
I enjoy this walk, he said, which is about three or four miles out and then back again.
But Mary Pat, my wife, does not care much for it. It bores her, she says, but still I can count on
her to accompany me at least once a week, until winter comes of course. And then she comes
with me only because she is worried I will fall into a snow drift and freeze to death, wont be
found until spring, perhaps my head or my feet thawing first, revealed along the roadway like
some Neanderthal specimen. I enjoy these walks not only because I can move away from my
studio, but because there is so much to see. Between my mind and what is out there in the world
is a gulf that is so unfathomable, I nearly cry every time I see it. How many times have I gloried
in my small attempts to bridge that chasm between real and imagined, but then I see something, a
speck of color in a leaf or the inexplicable swirl or an unnamed cloud and I am tossed back to
where I started thirty, forty, or was it fifty years ago? Used to be I was devastated by these
confrontations with reality, but that was when I had an immature and counterproductive idea of
time, an idea about time that the young have as the young do not seem themselves as defined in
time, but constantly fighting it, they do not understand that they are simply part of a river that
carries them along and what they see and know will be in that river, not outside the river, you
cannot escape the river. Now I know that time will be unkind as long as you pay attention to it.
Ignore it and it is beautifully benign.

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I cant help but be amazed, he said, at how each day what appears to be the same
elements in this small channel of the world can exercise themselves so differently simply
because it is sunny or cloudy, earlier or later than the day before. Wind creates changes in the
fields just as wind creates changes in the ocean, the swells rise and fall, the eddies swirl and
vanish then reappear somewhere else, on certain days one can catch sight of the dust devils that
childishly mimic the tornadoes that everyone here respects with an ancient fear. While I may
have seen the same barn a hundred times now, I can swear that it changes each time I see it, ages
like we age, sheds light, grows color, becomes heavier, more transparent, breathes differently
through the slats in its side, sleeps more soundly beneath a blanket of snow.
Mary Pat is not amused or much interested in any of this, he said, all too often I look up
to see her far in the distance, her figure slumped over as she walks as if she had long wearied of
this journey, like some old Chinese woman in the timeless middle of that wearisome country. I
walk so as to see people, people I would never see if I stayed in my studio all day and all night, I
walk to see the people who inhabit this land, yet it is the things that capture my attention most,
and the people, well, I have to admit I am a bit afraid of them. I can only imagine what they
think of me, even though it has been two years now since we moved here, I have not met anyone
along this road, never even received as much as a wave from a passing car, towing its cloud of
dust, but then I dont offer a wave myself, in fact I look away, I do, I know this. I turn and look
away, as if studying something, which in fact I probably am as there is always something to
study whichever way you turn. I have come to know the houses and the farms quite well, and I
am not hesitant to imagine from what I see in the architecture, the landscape, the things that
collects by porches, next to the garage, the elements that make up the gardens, the driveways, the
things you find scattered about, piled purposefully, discarded thoughtlessly, in all of this I can

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generate a person, a family, a circle of relationships, a history, a culture so to speak. I do this
purposefully and perhaps quite recklessly, but that is what I do.
There is a pig farmer, he said, who in defiance of the myth about pigs keeps the cleanest
farm I have ever seen. The pigs themselves are spotlessly clean, pink and round and perfectly
happy it seems despite being crowded behind aluminum fences and sleeping on concrete pads.
They move slowly and methodically not rushed or hurried as a frightened animal would do.
Their lives are controlled and safe and methodical, a perfect life it seems for a pig, as long as you
ignore the final coming. But the pig farmer is a large man who wears clean, pressed overalls
every day. He wears a white hat and a plaid shirt and rolls the sleeves up to his elbows. He is
amazingly agile for such a large man, I try to mimic the way he bends down to pick up things
without bending his knees and find I cannot come close to the task. He twists and turns and
stands with a single foot hooked under a fence rail to grab the misting hose and bring it over for
cleaning or repair. His arms are long yet thick with muscle, I imagine he could grab two pigs
under each arm and carry them across the entire yard, squealing and all. He never slips, he
moves with purpose and with a solidity that anchors his entire being to this earth. There is a
stronger pull from the earths center on this man than there is on me, that is why he is so sinewy
and strong and I am but flab and wasted muscle.
His wife is a small woman, he said, petite to the point of hilarity when she stands next to
him, her face comes just above his bulging belly while if she reached up with her arms she could
not even grasp his neck unless he lowered it like an obedient horse. He seems to love her in that
way men who have no emotion love women, which is to obey them and never ignore them when
they are around. She seems to love him too, and why not, she has a protector and a stalwart mate
who will make sure her existence has security at all times. But what makes these two interesting
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is not themselves, but their two daughters, twins clearly, two girls probably nine or ten years of
age. Some joke was played on the man and wife when they had these children, or perhaps it was
simply a compromise that looks like a joke but between his gargantuan size and her petite
feature, these two girls gathered enough from both parents to look just like two little pigs
standing and running upright on their flubby little legs. Uncertain that age will cure them of this
beastly affliction, I fear the two girls are destined to be forever akin in appearance to the animals
they raise for commerce. From the tiny feet to the bulging thigh and bulbous butts, to the
barreled bellies, neckless shoulders, round head and yes, turned up noses, these two girls were
condemned to a plight that would be hilarious if it were not so tragic.
Further up the road was a much more interesting dwelling, he said, a small home tucked
back behind some fir trees, a house that was painted bright green with white trim and behind it a
larger barn that was painted red. A woman who appears ducking in and about her trees and
shrubs, very much like a living version of the munchkins and elves and trolls that she has placed
throughout her gardens, so much like a living version of the cement deer and rabbits and plastic
owls tied to the eaves, the ceramic Disney characters that look lost and forlorn, the rubber
alligator, the little boys in leprechaun outfits that sit on each side of a small wooden bridge above
a small artificial pond. She is a gnome among gnomes, a troll among trolls, but she is alive and
performs her functions with great alacrity and patience. She picks up the dead branches and
rakes away the fallen leaves. She trims the errant bits of shrubbery, she replaces a stone that has
fallen from its place, or shoves gavel back to where it belongs. In the spring she comes out with
paints and applies new feathers to the cardinal on a fence, she paints the eyes back into on the
baby deer that the winter storms had washed away, she paints the posts across which the wire
fencing keeps out the cows from the farm next door. She sweeps the cement porch, she clears

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the leaves and muck from the drains, she clears the gutters and washes down the window sills.
She is short and low to the ground, she moves without a care as to the flies that buzz about her,
the bees that leave their nest and swarm on her head and neck, with a casual flap of her hand she
knocks down the huge garden spiders that make webs twenty feet in width from tree to tree, she
shoes away the corn snakes and hisses back at the possum that crosses her path.

* * *

How there is a massage parlor in downtown B where there are Chinese masseuses. It is
here that Walker goes when he gets drunk. It is here into this parking lot of a small shop off
main street that sometimes he would find himself pulling up to a small shop just off the main
street. After spending a few minutes in the car to smoke a cigarette and listen to a song that he
suddenly wanted to hear on the radio, he would flick away his butt, get out of the car, nod to the
hefty man sitting outside on a tattered banquet chair and squeeze through the glass door. Once
inside he would be excited by the very things that would in a half hour nauseate him, the chink
music playing on a small squawk box, the dragons of fake gold with catfish whiskers, fish scales
and terrible claws on the wall, the finely carved birdcage that he made a note of every time he
saw it, the curved pieces of wood, the fine lattice work, the ways in which the frame was set, to
study more so that he could copy it and make his own. His wife would like it he knew that.
The girls inside, dressed as they were in their outfits various and cheap, their stockings,
their nightgowns and lace, all smiled and spoke to him altogether only thing he could understand
amidst their quick and warbled chirping was: Walker, chirp, chirp, Walker

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And in a few minutes she would appear, not thin but not fat, in a black teddy that she
always wore that perhaps he always requires but it had been so many times that the requests was
now automatic and she would smile with her freshly painted lips and hold back the glass beads
which he had long ago noticed were made of some kind of plastic that looked more like glass
than any plastic he had ever seen before and so each time he walked through it he thought about
grabbing one so he could study it more as that was a fine plastic these beads were.
And suddenly with the sight of her before him, her hands holding back the glass beads,
her not so thin thighs white as plaster next to the black of her teddy, her hair black like tar against
her white face, her eyes black like the eyes of a bird beneath her fallen eyelids, and he would
wonder as he always wondered was this woman some strange species brought here from the
Orient or was she an injun brought off the plains, and suddenly as if to answer him he heard
again the faint Chinese music, perhaps the sound of a waterfall somewhere, the lights behind her
seemed to fade and he was brought into a chamber of linen and silk, that smelled of sweetness
and blossoms and fragrant wood, and he would feel himself pulled into the otherness, into the
vague but consuming otherness which he knew he had never known but had always sought but
had always denied himself but could always find here, as long as he was ready for it which the
whiskey had helped, as long as he was open to it which a certain weariness facilitated, as long as
he had no fear which the cloak of darkness helped alleviate, as long as he was willing which
came from the child deeply hidden inside him, as long as he was accepting, and so as she
undressed him she would ask as she always asked if he wanted her to wear this for him, and he
would say yes and they would sleep onto the sheets and with a hidden reach behind her she
would then set the timer.

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WALKER
How it is here that Alicia Walker goes when she goes looking for Walker, after she has
been told by someone that Walkers truck is parked outside this massage parlor, it is here where
she barges in screaming and shouting like a woman on fire, pushing past the bouncer who can do
nothing but grown as he lets her past, bursting through closed door, bursting through the curtain
of glass beads and into the back room where the compartments between the massage tables are
separated by cheap white sheets, as she slashes and tears across the curtains with her nails and
her purse, upsetting a half nude customer, causing the women to shriek and panic and the madam
of the massage parlor to once again telephone the sheriff who will arrive only to listen for nearly
thirty minutes to Alicias ranting and ravings about how between alcohol and this decadence the
entire moral fiber of B was rotten, rotten to the very core, and of all people he was the one who
could do something about it, do something about it before all people were lost, not the people
like Walker who was already irredeemable and lost forever to this and any other world, but do
something before a child is lost, before a young innocent falls prey and steps in here and across
this threshold into a realm of complete and utterable nonreturn. And how dare Walker come here
in her station wagon, how dare he park her car out here in front of this filthy sinful place, how
dare he sit his filthy disease ass on the seat of her car after being in this god forsaken place, how
dare these women take the genitals and filth of other men into their hands and who knows what
else, how dare these chinks come here and disrupt the values and goodness of a town like B,
these women who are not from here, could care less about our boys here, are nothing but niggers
with slanted eyes, who invited them, who asked you and who asked you and who asked you to
bring your slutty filthy disease riddened bodies here to our town, get out you filthy whores, get
out you diseased sewer rats off some boat from Pearl Harbor or Nagasaki or wherever the hell
you rats come from, look at you, you look like rats, filthy rats, giving your diseases and your

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fleas and your hell knows what to our men and our boys, who are you to come here, who are you
to leave the hellhole where you ought to stay and come here to our town, why come here, why?
of all the god damned places to pick why in the hell did you chose to bring your diseased mouths
and diseased cunts to our town? Why? Why? Why couldnt you have stopped someplace,
anywhere else? Why here, why America? Why here for Christs sake, of all places why here in
our town? Are we that diseased in ourselves that we feel the need to live with the likes of you
rats, you diseased and filthy whores? Why cant you coolies and you chinks just stay where you
belong, stay with your own, wherever you live? We should throw you back, that is what I say,
we should send you all back, if that is what it takes, send your diseased cunts back to infect your
own diseased people, not our people and especially not our boys, our innocent boys who should
never have the inclination let alone the opportunity to touch your diseased cunts or have your
diseased hands touch them
How it is here that the narrator has a decision to make as he realizes he has allowed
himself to descend, if that is the right word, into an area that is entirely out of comfort, as he
attempts to follow his character, Alicia Walker as she descends herself into her mind, which he,
dangerously though, assumes is like that of a tightrope, a thin strand across which she walks,
ready to fall in either direction into some depth or abyss or mental realm that would be beyond
all description and knowing to any of us

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should all die those cock sucking cunts those slant eyed gooks why come here why our boys

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WALKER

Her walk on this tightrope made possible with the ballast of her fury on one side of her
balance against the rage she held out to the other side of her, whether anger or rage would
suddenly upset her delicate position one could not know and what would lie below and beneath
was equally unknowable, and so all the narrator knows is that she at times maintained this
balance and did not fall, stayed abalance her precarious rope, which was a state of mind as dark
and fearful as any other.

And the trumpet sings alone, low, slow and alone; low, slow alone the
trumpet sings, calls, sings, alone, low, slow; the song carries her there, far
from here, far to a distant place where she can dance to a different life, a
different time; the trumpet takes here there.

* * *

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WALKER

How after the pigs were slaughtered the guts and shit and blood were gathered and what
could not be fed back to the still living pigs was spread upon the fields, and so out of the guts and
blood and shit came forth corn, and hence the cycle of sameness, the never to be developed
identity, the oneness of all from shit and blood back to life again.
The Walkers had nothing in their history to hold them together, nothing on which to build
one generation into another generation, all they had was what they had each escaped from, all
they had was what they thought they had escaped from and the fear that they had not escaped and
the fear that what it was they were escaping from was really very much alive and threatening to
them.
It was said and so therefore believed of Alicia Walker that she began her collections and
storage of things solid and materials when she began to see her life as she assumed it would be
disappearing, when in fact the truth is she stated this collecting and storing far prior to her life as
she fantasized it began disappearing, she started this collection and storage far in anticipation of
all this disappearing.
Evolution is a force that shapes our tendencies because of the pattern of repeating that
underlies its process, without the process of repeating evolution would not be a living tendency
that we would embrace, there would not be a scientific tendency that we would embrace, there
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would not be a religious tendency that we embraced, evolution would not hold force. Everyone
has in their living repeating; repeating of every kind of thing in them, repeating of every
impatient feeling they have in them, of the anxious feeling almost everyone has more or less in
them. (Crocheting, building, making, planting, growing, killing, cleaning, waking, sleeping)
This is more a history of feelings versus a history of actions.
Resisting being implies having a choice, the determinism in the lives of the savages.
My way has been to try to go from the concrete to the abstract, as a way of seeing and a
way of knowing, a way of perceiving and a way of comprehending, a way of experiencing and a
way of the intellect, a way of biology and a way of cognition.
The old men and women of B when they died, died very much like a plume of smoke,
they go as if but a puff of the briefest smoke, vanish just like that, transmogrified from a
substantive human being with weight and solidity to something in death that is without weight,
that is as light and as wispy as smoke. And so Jesse went as a plume of smoke, and so Alicia
Walker when Alicia Walker went, she too went as a plume of smoke.
When it comes to death, one can wonder what the deceased thought they would take with
them into death, there was Walker who took his many mysteries if he took anything. If Walker
was about anything he was about mystery; he was always seeing the bad as a way to counter the
good as a way to negate anything positive; as a way of changing his chances in death.

Exudates

Excoriate
Exuviate
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And the trumpet sang of loneliness, a lament for a land one would never know; the
trumpet sang of loneliness, a lament of a time that had passed by long ago; the trumpet sang of
loneliness, a song that had captured a life with its every note, a song from a black man who
never met the small insignificant Midwestern wife who play endlessly his song of laments, his
songs of a land that she imagined longingly as his land, a land she would never see, never visit,
never know, but would always cherish.
How sometimes these stories seem like fragments, sometimes they seem like collected
wholes ruined with detail.
How I love this telling of this history as much as it may be annoyance to the stranger who
reads it, and I dont know how to bridge that gap between my joy and the strangers annoyance.
Listen: the trumpet; listen: the castanets; listen: the calling, a wish, a thought.

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WALKER

Later at night.

The door to the prison bursts open, the Preacher stands in the doorway, surveys the
interior, then looks back outside.
Take my horse down a block or two, he called into the darkness. Wait with her.
A young voice answers, Sure Reverend!
Whatre you doing here Preacher? asks a short, stocky man leaning back in a chair, a
police stick across his knees. And what is with your bag? You a doctor now too Preacher?
I heard there was a man in trouble here.
Aint no man in trouble here, you done been misled. Might as well take your pony back
home.
I wasnt led or misled here. I come of my own accord Shorty.
Its just Walker
I know who it is.
Then whyd you bother coming.
Each mans soul is equal to another.
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WALKER
This ones vacant Preacher. You done wandered to the edge of an empty well.
The Preacher held a kerosene lantern into the black hole of the prisoners cell.
Walker? Are you in trouble
Fuck yea! Hes in trouble. Nothing that we cant handle though.
Wheres Flint? Or the Sheriff?
Flint went to get some medicinals.
On account of what?
On account of some accident he had.
Walker are you okay?
Youre talking to an empty man, Reverend, Im telling you. We been trying to talk some
sense out of him now for some time. The man is as dead as a rock.
What problems does Flint have?
Some little things.
And the Sheriff?
Dont rightly know.
Walker --?
Hurry Reverend! We got our business too.
Walker, you have rights you know. You have the rights men give you and the rights the
Lord gives you.

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WALKER
Well give him some and then get on to the next dying chump out there. Got plenty of
them here in B.
Walker, you may not escape the law but there aint nothing you cant be forgiven for.
Empty as a dry well he is.
Outside the sounds of horse hooves beating the road, men shouting, a woman yelling
back in answer.
Shorty! the Preacher shouted, picking up a second bloodied truncheon. I see whats
happening here. Violence begets violence. And violence is not the way. Justice will be done, it
need not be meted out with such blunt and stupid instruments.
Hes talking about your brain, Shorty, Walker said.
Fuck you Walker.
Walker, the Preacher said, I will stay here with you. Until the Sheriff gets here.
No need, preacher, Shorty said. Walker dont need nor is he deserving of your continued
company. He needs your quick sympathy maybe and maybe he could have used some of your
advice but that application would have been long ago. Right now, he aint in need of anything
you can give him. His fate is writ large.
Walker did you do what they say you did?
Suppose that depends on what they said.
That eight months ago you raped Jeri Lynn.
Nope.
That you nearly killed her.
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WALKER
Nope.
That you gave her a child.
Nope.
That you then found her last night under the Central Avenue bridge.
Yep.
And so you beat her again.
Nope.
So bad did you beat her that you near beat the unborn child right out from her.
Nope.
That you were covered with her blood.
Yep.
Told you Reverend, an innocent man would have more to say than nope, yep, nope like
he done. Its his sons bitch you is talking to him about. If he didnt do it he wouldnt just be
saying yep, nope. Hed be yelping his innocence is what he would be doing if he were a normal
man, an innocent man.
Shortys not all wrong, Walker. This aint a pretty picture!
I didnt make it, Reverend.
And they say they found you with money from Deagan Cosners till. Is that true.
Werent his anymore.
So you stole money from Deagans till.

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WALKER
Nope.
But you had Deagans money.
Not once it become mine.
But you didnt steal it.
He gave it to me.
Yea, he gave it to you! Listen, Reverend this aint your job. Do your Our Fathers and be
done with it, huh?
Did he give it to you Walker?
He owed it to me for fixin the iron railings on his steps.
And so he gave it to you.
He told me to take it.
He told you to take it from his till.
Suppose so.
Reverend, what is the use?
Shorty, Im waiting here till the Sheriff gets back. So you are saying that you were given
this money by Deagan and then you just happened to walk down underneath the Central Avenue
bridge and there you just happened to run into Jeri Lynn bleeding under that bridge, giving birth
to a child that was beat out of her?
That is how I saw it.
And you gave her some of the money.
About half it seems.
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WALKER
What for?
Cuz she looked like she needed it. Told her to come with, but she wouldnt. Told her she
needed to get to a hospital, a room or something on the other side of the river.
You gave her money to shut up, Shorty said, that is what you did. You tried to pay her
off. But when she proved more legitimate than you you beat her you bastard.
Is that true Walker? the Preacher asked.
She were already beat pretty bad. When I seen her.
And her blood was on you.
I tried to help her.
You mean physically help her.
Yep.
But look at your hands Walker, looks like you done broke a knuckle or two.
That happened too.
You realize you aint got much of a case for yourself.
Nope, I knows I dont. Not under the prevailing circumstances.
Flint found him, Shorty said, and then they got into it.
You got into a fight with Flint?
Seems he was hankering for one.
Flint was trying to save Jeri Lynn, Shorty said, for crying out loud, Walker.
Walker, why did you get into a fight with Flint?

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WALKER
Dont likely know.
You need to answer me Walker.
Not if I cant.
Hes just damn evil Reverend. Gotta give up on a few of the flock to save the others.
So what do you propose to do Walker?
Wait I suppose.
Wait for what? For the men outside?
The truth always comes out one way or another. So I will just have to wait I guess.
You might very well be dead by then.
The truth will still come out.
But it wont matter to you if you are dead.
It will matter to someone more so.
Outside the noise escalates, raps and knocks against the thick walls. Flint, the Sheriffs
son, squeezes through the door and shuts it behind him. He has a black eye above a fresh cut on
his cheekbone, his bottom lip is split and theres a bandage around one of this hands.
Flint, the Preacher said, those aint just scratches. So what happened to you?
Nothing to waste time over, what in damnation are you doing here and what the hell
have you been talking about?
Good and evil mostly, Shorty answered
Why did you let him in Shorty? The law needs to question him first. Just like me, he
needs to answer some questions to some things we all wants to know.
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WALKER
He just come here.
Reverend what are you doing here?
I have all rights to be here. Where is your father?
At the courthouse. Waiting.
Shorty here says you and Walker got into a fight?
Shorty, come on, we need to transport Walker here to the courthouse. What has he said
while I was gone?
Nothing substantial, Shorty said.
He needs medical attention and he will never make it there alive with that crowd out
there, the Reverend said.
We aint uncivilized Reverend.
Lets wait until your Daddy gets here.
The Sheriff is waiting for us at the courthouse. Waiting for us.
You know this?
I knows this.
Looking out the window, the Preacher says, funny, dont see no lights on yonder.
There is a knock at the door, Shorty looks through the peep, closes it, unlocks the door.
Two women come in carrying water and glasses. The men let them pass but when they get close
to Walker they throw a glass of liquid on him.
What is that? Shorty yells
Kerosene! the Preacher shouted, stop her!
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WALKER
One woman strikes a match, but it goes out and she is subdued.
Id say you father needs to come here, the Preacher said. Walker? Wheres your wife?
Dont bother her none.
How about you son?
No sense. Leave em all be.
There is a terrible sound as people begin to beat sticks against the walls of the jailhouse
and shouting goes up all around, fists are banging at the door against which the Preacher now
stands.
Do you believe in evil Walker? the Preacher shouts across the room.
You was looking into the very eyes of evil Reverend, Flint said.
Walker, do you believe in evil?
Cant rightfully believe in what dont exist I suppose.
What do you mean?
I said, if it dont exist in the world then it dont make much sense believing in it.
You dont believe there is evil?
I have and to be honest and fair I dont see evil, not in men here, not in any animals, there
is no evil in the weather, none in the earth, none in the skies.
What do you suppose that means Walker?
Without there being any evil, I suppose, well there cant be much of a God either, or at
least no use for him which may be the same as no such thing.
Hear that preacher? Flint said, what good is such a man as this, huh?
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WALKER
Walker, the Preacher said, you dont suppose shes comin round to see you.
What for?
To see youre safe.
I am as safe as can be, this is iron last I felt it.
You aint safe here, you know that.
Not even his wife wants anything to do with the bastard, said Flint. You are a dumb
bastard aint you? Show up here in our town like some saint, now look at you.
I cant help you much longer Walker, the Preacher said.
You aint helping me much now I dont reckon.
But yet I leave and well
What you gone help me with preacher. What are you fighting gainst? You sure you
know the enemy you got in your sight? Cuz ifn you dont, no sense pulling no trigger.
Preacher we gotta get to business, Flint said.
I am staying till your Daddy comes round.
He aint coming round.
Walker, what have you to say?
Reverend, this aint no church going man.
Flint, I dont know what damnation will come over you, but right now this man needs
attended to. He does not need your condemnation! It comes to this, Walker, no matter where you
stand, it is still a long way down, no matter how far you think you have fallen, you have that
much farther to fall. It doesnt end, the Preacher said to Flint, there is no end when it comes to
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mans inability to understand. There are only slogans and pills to make us feel we have some
power, that we have some hope, the truth is, the Preacher said to Walker, none of these pills or
portions are worth a damn and not a single one of these slogans going take a man to heaven, all
you got, the Preacher said to Flint, is one chance, one bet that you can take and that bet is that
you got it in you someplace to do the right thing when the time comes to it, and that dont mean
it aint going to hurt, the Preacher said to Walker, that dont mean it aint going to hurt like hell
to make that right and true decision and if it dont then you probably havent chosen the right
one, but God aint going to give you the answer, your heart aint going to give you an answer and
your goddamn pea brains sure aint going to give you the answer, the Preacher said to Flint, you
gotta just base your decision on faith, nothing else, you gotta do it and just have all the goddamn
faith in the world that you done picked the right thing to do. And if you do, no angels are going
sing for you, the Preacher said to Walker, no trumpets are going to blow, no person is going to
come up to you and embrace you, you will get no love, no praise, no nothing from anyone. All
you get is the unknowing, the uncertainty of what youve done, all you get is to live your life
never knowing if you did the right thing. But right now, we can look to one example that we
have, the life of Jesus Christ, and how he vowed never to hurt, never to harm
Good enough, preacher, but you came here with the wrong book in your hand, Walker
interrupted. You care to recite to us how the Lord destroyed Sodom and brought the flood, how
the Lord cut down the first born Egyptians, how the Lord put the plague upon Israel, how Moses
directed the slaying of thousands, how Joshua slew all but a whore in Jericho and hung five kings
from five cities them cut them down and sliced them it pieces.
You dont know the damn Bible, Flint spit.

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WALKER
Tell me preacher then the story of how Amnon ravished the sister of Absalom and so
Absalom killed his brother, and how Absalom was hung from a tree and speared and bled by this
Fathers soldiers to feed the dogs.
See hes nuts, said Shorty.
I will kill you! Flint screamed.
See Preacher. You come to stop violence and yet you carry a book that is violence from
front to end. You cant fight fire with fire, preacher. Dont work that way. But your book tells
the truth still. Our world is wrought from violence, the Hebrew was created out of violence, your
God and his merciless destruction. And then it ends with a man beaten and torn, nailed to
wooden posts, hung to leak onto the desert floor. A new world is promised but in what way, with
fire and brimstone and the final destruction of all? With this book you think you will save me?
You never read this book Walker, Flint said.
But I read other things.
What other things?
I read skies and water and what I see in a horses eye, and I know what makes men. And
it is violence that makes men. It aint logic that takes us into war, it aint rationality that makes
us kill. Violence is a part of us just like other faculties of our mind, but perhaps it is the strangest
of them all, the one that gets us up and guides us, while other faculties like our smarts and our
compassion struggle to control the desire of violence.
You still doubt us Reverend? Flint said.
He has been beaten, and he is afraid, the Preacher said. Walker, stop your talking. When
were feeling trapped, we say things such as this, things we wouldnt otherwise say.
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WALKER
The role of violence is burned deep into mans soul, it is as natural as any reasons is, as
readily available as intelligence, we reckon with it as often as we reckon with wisdom and
smarts, we act out of violence just as we act out of compassion, or with logic, violence is what
we have to make our decisions for us, to make us our lives.
Walker, quiet, the Preacher asked sternly.
We dont fret none the hurt of a human being any more than we do a pig or a dog. In fact,
we extend out love more Id say to the animal members of our kingdom that to our own kind.
That shows that intelligence that is wrapped up with violence.
Reverend, if you are going to stay you must shut him up!
We go to war not because of logic, but we use logic to plan our wars. We strive to better
our fellow man not out of some intellectual guidance but drawn upon the wells of violence.
I cant stop the men outside no more, Reverend.
Walker, whether you are innocent or whether you are guilty, only God will judge. Take
my hand Walker.
Kindly appreciated Preacher, but I have come to face with death. For the first time, I
have some face to face with him and he holds no sway over me no more. Open the door Frank,
let them in.
Frank dont.
I must. He himself wants it.
Walker, let a judge oversee the process. Lets do this as civilized men have described for
us.

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WALKER
I seen death, Preacher, I seen the same death that comes to face every man and woman
and animal. Of all I have witnessed, Preacher, of all the lives I have seen extinguished, of all the
eyes that I have seen bulge and water with fear, of all the limbs I have seen struggle, all the little
cries I have heard, now I see what they have seen and so it is not the same surprise now to me.
Flint, the man is sick. You cannot do this to a sick man.
Violence is our being, it is our way. The very act of creation is an act of violence in and
of itself, making something by destroying something else. Whether wood or metal, or making a
horse pull a carriage or a dog to obey, or a child into a man.
Walker, time now is to talk sense, to make amends, to demonstrate that your mind is
straight -Preacher! You have nothing in your bag that can fix or cure this. Your bag is empty, and
your hands are too soft to correct what has been wrought hard as there here iron.
I agree, I mean, he is not right in his mind.
Let them!

Take me! Walker screamed as he came to the bars. His face calm and

stonelike in his defiance. Flint looked at him and backed away a bit. The Preacher too. Shorty,
open the door. I have nothing to fear.
The men are not going to wait, Shorty said, but I dont know.
Why what do you mean Shorty? Flint asked.
Maybe we are wrong, Shorty said, what if we are wrong? I never thought what if we
were wrong.
We aint wrong, Flint said. Preacher, seems you done run out of prescriptions. Time to let
the real truth do its will.
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WALKER
Open the door, open the door Shorty, Walker shouted. Let men do what they do. Let men
do the only thing they can do. Let them kill one another. That is all they can do. All they are
ever able to do.
Walker, be quiet.
Why wont Alicia come and rescue you? Flint said, hesitating at the door. You know, she
walks around here, you know that she walks around outside, waiting for that something to
happen, you know that something, something she both fears but ultimately cant wait for. She
knows it will kill her to have it happen, but she knows it will be like life all over again once it
happens.
Well, if there is a God, Walker said, well I reckon he got a sense of humor we dont truly
understand as of yet.
There is a violent scuffle, Flint unbolts the door, which opens quickly then closes on the
clamor outside, another man appears in the shadows, and as he walks forward he reveals himself
as Walkers son. The younger Walker looks at his father, they stare at each other a long time.
Dad? What are they doing to you, Dad?
Your Dad is in some trouble young Walker. Something he done with your girl.
Facing his father, the young Walker said, Dad I know it werent you.
Maybe it were, Walker said.
What have you done to him? The young Walker said to Flint. It werent. There are some
things the world can tolerate and some things the world cant. There are some rules we live by
even ifn they are hard to muster into action.
He just said he done it, your father is the culprit.
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WALKER
You Flint are a bastard of the worse kind, the young Walker said. A bastard of yourself as
well as of the flesh that made you. I done lived my life in accordance with my principles, which
god willing also allowed others to live their lives with theirs. I aint interfering none with your
life. You were born a bad hand and so maybe you just gots to live with it. But seems to me you
is aching to live without it.
What does that mean Walker? Flint said to the younger Walker.
Means I too was born a bad hand, a father like him is not something I can rightly say I am
proud of none. But at least Flint I lived within acceptance of what I had. I didnt try to ruin your
life or another life just to make up for what I had not. And so when you take from others expect
to lose something yourself is I guess what I am saying.
Walker, what are you saying? The man who hurt your gal is in there. Not out here.
He is in here, perhaps in here and here and here.
Walker, you aint no saint. No one born to a father like yours can ever be a saint. You are
as poisoned as he is. You are as rotten and evil as him. And you will come to the same place
where he is, probably sooner if you dont watch yourself. Shorty, wheres my Dad?
No one knows, Shorty said. And Mrs. Walker is outside, demanding to be let in.
A womans wail can be heard outside the door.
Leave her out there, the young Walker said. She aint in no condition to deal with this
none. And she sure dont need to see this.
See what? Flint answered, of course she needs to see it, this is what she has wrought, this
is the fruits of her labor, this here is the legacy of her life, all right here, all in this room.
She dont need to see nothing, the young Walker answered.
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The wailing grew louder as if she were directly up against the door. Fists pounded on the
metal separating them all.
I dont want you boys negotiating on my behalf, Walker said from his cell.
Flint curled his lips and gave out a laugh that was recognizable to all.
True, Walker, Flint said, why should the two of us negotiate on your behalf? When in
fact you have been negotiating on ours since the beginning. Since you made the first negotiation,
we have been nothing more than two little puppets for you to pull, aint that right Walker? So
how does it feel actually to realize that we are in fact negotiating for you old man, that these two
puppets are out here deciding everything for you. Suddenly, we are no longer in the Walker
cage, we are free and Walker, the master, the master creator is in the Cage, helpless as two babes.
Life is bigger than youll ever be, Flint, Walker said. And so I will let life judge me not
some young kid who cant hold his ground against an old man.
Flint made a move as if to come after Walker. The young Walker stood in front of the
cage that held his father.
I already put you down once. But life has judged you old man. Life passes.
I come to take Walker home, the young Walker said.
Home? And where is Walkers home tonight? With you and your gal that he done beat
near to death? I dont think so. With his wife? I think she would sooner see him burn than come
back home to her. And these people outside, they seem to have their own ideas.
You done incited their minds, the Preacher said, you can cool them down.

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I done nothing, Flint said the Preacher. Unlike you and me Walker, that crowd out there
is made up of minds that think for themselves Walker, they can make up their own minds, they
can do as they please. You and me we aint so free.
Im taking him home.
You aint the law.
Neither are you.
My father is.
Where is your father? the young Walker said, show him to me or let me take him home.
Show me Flint! Where is he? Where is your father?
Flint grabs the gun from Shortys holster, points it at Walker.
Flint, stop this now, the Preacher shouted.
Flint speaks to the young Walker.
Now you just get on Walker and let me deal with the law. Let me deal with the real law.
The young Walker pull his hand from out of his pocket revealing a gun of his own.
Shit! Shorty yells. Hes got a gun Flint, watch out. And you got mine!
Flint fires into Walkers cell. The young Walker shoots Flint in the forehead. Flint
collapses to the floor.
He shot me in the eye!
Dad? the young Walker shouts through the bars, are you okay?
Missed me. Somehow the bastard missed me.
Walker suddenly loses his composure, falls to his knees and begins to weep.
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Why did you do that! Flint cried out holding his face, you shot me in the eye!
Call the doctor, the Preacher shouted to the people outside, get the Sheriff!
I was trying to save you god damn it, Flint cried, not hurt you.
You were the one who hurt Jeri Lynn, the young Walker said.
No.
You were the one who done all that to her, gave her a child and then tried to beat it out of
her.
No, no.
No! Stop! the Preacher shouted.
But the door had been pushed open, the men outside had rushed in, past the bleeding
deputy, past the son, past the Preacher and past the iron doors that held the man they called
Walker. Left behind was a young man named Flint bled to death on the floor, the young Walker
tossed and locked inside a cell, a man of uneven constitution wandering the scene gazing from a
face that has grown to such proportions it cannot express a recognizable emotion, and a woman
who glides slowly through this all, through blood and wreckage, as quiet and as softly as a ghost,
muttering how cans they do this act in this way nothing but animals nothing but beasts when
they is human every ones of them children of god so they think so youd think and yet they do this
anyway damning us all

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EARTH

Music fades.
It is a warm and pleasant Sunday night, Sunday morning here in Cedar Rapids, a cool
74 degrees at three am after a rather hot and muggy day. Tonight we were supposed to have the
celebrated author Derek Mills on the air to discuss his new book, Aliens and the Antichrist, but
there seems to have been some confusion, maybe it was the time change, but I have to apologize
to you all as I cant seem to get him right now on the phone and so we will have to try to get him
on the line at some other time. I was really looking forward to having Derek with us as I have
been reading his book, I havent finished it yet, but I am finding it to be in line with some of my

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own thoughts and research and thought it would be very interesting to have him with us. So
while we are waiting for that I thought I would share some news with you, some recent news that
I have come across about UFOs and then perhaps we will call it an early night tonight.
Music rises then fades.
Again, I apologize, as we had set up this day and time and I dont know why some
people cant seem to keep their commitment, it causes a lot of problems to have a guest say they
will be available and then suddenly not be available, so here I am going to play a little music
while we wait.
Music rises again. After only a few seconds the music stops abruptly.
Oh just a minute, seems like we have Derek on line after all. Hello Derek?
Hello?
(The cackling, loud but distant sound of a drive up window at a fast food place)
DID YOU SAY LARGE OR SMALL FRIES?
(shouting) Yes! I mean -- for the second time I said large!
KETCHUP WITH THOSE?
Derek? Derek? Can you hear me? Sounds like he is at a drive through.
(Away from the phone) Yes, some ketchup please. (Into the phone) Uh Hello?
THAT WILL BE THREE TWENTY THREE. PLEASE DRIVE UP TO THE SECOND
WINDOW.
Hello Derek Mills, this is King, the host of The Plain Truth.
Hi King. Sorry about the mix up. What time do you need me?
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Well uh Derek, we are live now.
Are we you mean is the interview going on right now?
Yes, it is.
Well, I need a little time. I am just now ordering some fries. Can I call you in a few
minutes when I get back on the road?
SORRY YOUR DEBIT CARD WAS DECLINED
What the fuck here, I got some change. King, King?
Yea, Derek.
King, let me call you back.
Sure, sure. I am guessing the time change caused this confusion.
Yes, the time change, that was it, sure messed me up.
Ok, no problem Derek, call us back.
Hey, I only have a dollar a dollar eighty four -- click
Ok, listeners, the good news is it looks like we will have Derek Mills on the line with
us after all. The time change created the confusion but the good news is we will have this
interview after all and as I was saying I have been looking forward to this discussion since Derek
does the same kind of research into his work that I find interesting. In the meantime, while we
wait for Derek to get his fries and get back on the road so that he can comfortably talk with us, I
thought I would just play a little music for you all, oh wait, looks like we have a caller here, why
dont we take a call while we are waiting. Hello, this is the Plain Truth.
Well good morning King.
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Ah, good morning Alicia. This is Alicia from B, most of you listeners out there will
know Alicia, a regular caller and faithful contributor to The Plain Truth. How are you Alicia?
Oh no use complaining you know. I heard that Derek Mills is delayed cuz he was
ordering some fries and so we had a little time waiting for him.
Seems we have a few minutes to kill.
So I thought Id just give a call if thats alright.
Sure us Alicia. You are welcome on the Plain Truth anytime. So what have you got for
us tonight.
Oh nothing real specific like, King, seems like a good night for a sighting but its sure
been a long time since I have spied anything at least from this here my vantage point.
Well, I know we can count on you if a fallen angel should come by to visit B on any
given night, you will be vigilant enough to see it. So what do you think of the events that have
been going on lately?
Oh just terrible King, just terrible. Can there be any doubt ifn you look at these events
that have befell us that the new order is at work and that they have us just where they want us
and that we are in the realm of Satan.
Yep, yep.
On your show the other night you talked about the Mark of the Beast and I do agree
that we are all subject to the Mark and that so many of us have most likely been tagged with this
here microchip and so what are we but all sheep marked by the beast, it is all coming to be just as
the plan for us has been all along.

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Except for those of us who spend the time, Alicia, who use our brains and look deeply
into the true meaning of the Scriptures, those of us who do our research and read the Bible for
what it really has to say.
Amen King. But the power of Satan is a mighty power it is. Comes to us through all
sorts of things that we would not ordinarily believe to be filled with the power of Satan, like TV,
like movies, like them things you read in those magazines at the grocery store. Its a terrible
thing King, a terrible predilection that we are in.
Well, as you know Alicia, I do agree with you that the influence of Satan is prevalent
upon our earth, but I do believe that the word of God and the Holy Spirit blanket our world and
will indeed be triumphant.
You are right, all we can do is believe and those of us who believe will be saved. But
the Antichrist King is not an angel, no, he is of flesh and blood, just as Jesus was a man and a son
of God, so the Anti-Christ is a man and a son of Satan, I believe he walks the earth like any other
man, I believe he is here in our midst, that he is here without mother and father as we knows it,
but here taking to him our daughters, corrupting our sons, perhaps he has taken himself a wife
and perhaps he has produced himself an offspring, all to cover himself from us, to hide from us
his identity, but in his eyes, in his face, in his laugh and in his decanter we will see and know his
evilness.
Our listeners may recall that Alicia has been a witness to the third kind, perhaps the
fourth kind. While we are waiting, Alicia, perhaps you can reshare with us some of your
experiences.
Well, King, they are not so much experiences as they are dreams you know. I cant say
I have been left with real indelectable experiences that I can point to you now and say for
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certainty what they were. I did see them lights I have spoke to, and I have that Polroid pitcher of
them too.
Tell us again what is in the picture, Alicia.
Oh just these lights and gizmos and things. Cant really tell whats in the pitcher really.
Except it aint of this world that is for sure.
But the strange thing about your story Alicia is that you saw these lights correct me if
I am wrong but you saw these lights and then the next thing you know you woke up in bed.
You were standing by a window looking out at these lights and the next thing you remember you
are waking up in bed.
Thats right King.
And how do you think that happened?
Well, plenty of people have said Im just plum crazy, a looney toon you know. And so I
got to admit that I certainly kinda doubt it myself. But to tell you the honest to goodness truth
King, Id say I was absconded.
You mean you were abducted? You were taken by these aliens?
Yes sir. At least I think so when I dont believe what these others are saying and so
think myself to be a looney toon.
And who took you? Did you see them?
No, I dont remember the details King. But they took me and it was like suddenly walls
and windas meant nothing anymore, we just kinda went right through them and into those lights.
I remember those lights cuz they got so bright that I was nearly blinded by it all and then it was
all completely dark.
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This was in the spaceship.
This was somewhere, King, I dont knows for sure, but somewhere not in my room.
And it was dark and there was all this here noise and motion about and something heavy over
me, pressing down on me, I remember I could barely breath as this thing pressed down on me,
moving and squashing me so.
Then what happened.
Then it stopped. And then the lights came back and then I woke up in bed.
This happened only once.
No King, I believe it has happened many times. What they want from me I dont know.
I am too old to give them any offshoots.
I guess you mean offspring. But your sense of them is that they are not benevolent.
They are evil King. They are the fallen ones. That I know.
Oh, listen, Derek Miller is now calling in. Lets get him into our conversation here.
Derek?
Yes, Hi King.
Good morning Derek, glad you could make it with us.
My pleasure.
Derek, I have here a copy of your new Book, UFOs and the AntiChrist, and I have to
admit I have not finished reading it, but what I have read is well fascinating.
Thanks King.

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Yes, and if you dont mind Derek, I want to leap past right now all the background
evidence on the Nephilim and jump right in to what I think is the most fascinating and without a
doubt the most controversial part of your book. In particular you have a very unique and
fascinating theory about Albert Einstein, dont you.
Well, not so much a theory King, just some thoughts for others to think about, just
trying to put some interesting pieces together others seemed to have missed.
Well, lets jump right in and start with that. I mean this could be quite controversial.
What have people said about this so far?
Well nothing yet
Basically what you are saying as I read it, as I read it, is that you think there is reason to
believe that Albert Einstein is a Nephilim, that he is or was living evidence that Nephilim are still
here on our planet.
Thats right.
That God did not rid the Earth of the Nephilim with the Great Flood and that Joshua did
not destroy the Nephilim in his rampage through what is now modern Israel.
Correct, King.
How did you come up with this idea Derek and well why dont you tell our listeners
what your theory about Einstein is and how it came about.
Sure King. Again thank you for having me on your show. The idea that Einstein is
something other than a normal human being is not new King. In fact NASA itself in 2005
published an article, in tongue in cheek tone, but serious all the same, speculating that Einstein
was an alien.
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This is NASA, the National Academy of Space and
Something like that. Yes, exactly. The fact is we have always wondered how this man
could have come up with the ideas that he had, how one man in these modern times could have
so radically changed our entire thinking about the world and talk about the world in such a way
that transcends how we see and experience the world. So I am not the first to wonder if Einstein
was truly human.
But you are the first to prove that.
I am not sure about that King. And I am not going to go so far as to say that Einstein
was an alien
You are claiming that he was born of an alien, that he was a Nephilim.
Yes, I think that is much more likely, a much more likely explanation. More provable.
And tell the readers if you dont mind what made you think this.
Well, again King, the evidence is pretty simple. Here is a man who did poorly in
school, his parents and teachers never thought he was going to amount to much. He doesnt even
get a job in a university but ends up working in a patent office sifting through patent applications
or whatnot all day long. Well, it just so happens, while Einstein is sitting alone in his little office,
isolated from the rest of the scientific and academic community, he comes up with five papers
that change the world and how we think about it.
That is pretty amazing when you put it like that.
Unprecedented. In one year he proves there are atoms and molecules, he determines
that space and time are relative, and that light travels at a constant speed at all times.
All things we pretty much take for granted now.
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Sure, but back then, these were near heresies against the scientific royalty. And it gets
even better, or weirder if you like. If you take a look at these papers you notice one very striking
feature of them.
What was that?
There are no references. In other words, it is a tradition in scientific fields that a new
idea comes against a backdrop of old ideas, in other words, when you espouse a new theory you
cite references to others who have either presented older theories that you are trying to disprove
or similar theories that you are trying to improve upon. Nothing in science comes out of the
blue, that is not its process, science is a field of thought that depends on the past for its future
direction.
But Einstein offered no reference to the past.
Einstein offered no references at all. It was if his ideas sprang up de novo, or as if he
believed that these ideas were already known, they were already available, they were already
accepted as truth somewhere, in some dimension and so they did not need to be referenced to a
past, not to a past that could not support these new theories anyway.
Fascinating isnt it? what else Derek? Tell us more.
Well, then there is the nature of the theories themselves. Again, they are not presented
to us in the way that scientist normally present theories. There is no evidence, no data, no
statistics.
What was it then?

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He told us stories. Einstein asked us to imagine things. King, it was as if Einstein was
talking to the highest levels of our scientific community as if they were children, they were asked
to play a game to help us imagine a world that to us does not and cannot exist.
And how did he know this world exists if we cannot imagine it exists?
Exactly, he was presenting not a theory at all, he was telling us how the world really
was as seen by beings with greater abilities than our own. And despite him not providing us with
any evidence, any proof, every one of his theories has been proven out, relativity, gravity,
everything.
He was giving us a glimpse of the world as higher beings saw it and understood it.
Exactly.
But isnt this more evidence that maybe he was simply visited by an alien who had this
knowledge, who imparted these theories which was common alien knowledge to Einstein, rather
than assuming he was a Nephilim?
If that was all there was to the story, I would agree King.
So there is more?
There is more. In fact, that was my idea at first, that Einstein was visited, because what
is also interesting about Einstein is that after these papers - all published by the way in an
obscure journal that no one read at the time - was that he never produced any work or ideas on
the same level again.
As if he was told these things and that was it.

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Yes, but his behavior after this leads me to believe that something else was at work
here. After he wrote these papers Einstein did some else that was strange. He went from being a
lonely, isolated man to a womanizer.
That is strange.
And let me add another anomaly for you Derek, he also went from being a fairly
antisocial who couldnt dress himself, didnt bathe, to being to a man who eventually was
considering being President of Israel, he became a celebrity, a star, name one other scientist who
has done this, name one other person who has undergone such a transformation in personality as
this.
You are right, I cant think of one. Scientists dont become presidents. That is strange.
What does it mean?
I think it can mean only one thing.
What is that Derek.
Einstein was a Nephilim.
Ah hah. And why?
He used the theory of relativity to gain entry into the highest levels of human society.
He then began to breed, to sew his seed. He then embarked on his ultimate goal which was to
take over Israel, to finish the battle.
Sorry Derek, I am losing you here, what battle is that?
Joshuas battle, King. Of course.
Of course. Yes. What does that mean?

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If you look at Israel today and you compare it to the Book of Joshua, you will see that
those areas where Joshua failed to carry out this plan to wipe out the races of beings, that he left
those beings in Gaza, the West Bank and the Territories. In other words, Joshua failed to rid the
world of the Nephilim and Israel today is battling that battle to rid the world of that threat to our
planet.
And Einstein?
And Einstein was a Nephilim who was building his own army and his own plan to go
back into Israel and support the Nephilim and ultimately destroy the world. He gave us the
atomic bomb and a war in which to use it to destroy this world once and for all.
What stopped him?
Huh?
What stopped him from doing all this? From building this army and destroying us?
Interesting King, I had never thought of that.
Well, clearly he died and no army, no war, no destruction ever happened.
My guess would be that some battle took place on a dimension we cant see or witness.
The outcome of that battle must have changed the plan or simply changed things in a way we
will never know.
Fascinating Derek. Well done. And this is in your new book?
Not really, I just mention it in my new book. It is kind of a teaser. This stuff about
Einstein will appear in my next book which will come out soon.

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Listen Derek, I really want to talk about the real topics in your recent book, UFOs and
AntiChrist, which just came out, but before we get into that we have a regular caller on the show
with us now. Alicia are you still there?
Yes, I am here King. Hi Derek.
Hi Alicia. What do you think of Dereks theory on Einstein?
Well I dont rightly know much about Einstein to tell you the truth, but I do believe
what he did have to say alright.
Well, Derek, Alicia is the survivor of an experience of the fourth kind, in fact she was
just relating her experiences as they relate to her abductions by an alien being before you came
on the air.
Oh, really? That is fascinating.
And Alicia had just remarked before you came on the line that her opinion, having been
one to go through these experiences, is that the alien beings are not good angels, but bad angels,
the fallen ones. Derek does this fit into you theories and ideas?
Well, not really King. You see, we need to be careful first of all of the cloaks of
detection at play in all this. If we are presented with an experience for example that UFOs are
evil, then what is to say that Satan did not create this experience for us so that we would hate and
distrust and try to even destroy the UFOs as you see in all those old War of the World type films,
which are in fact the good angels coming here to help us?
But I know that is not true Derek. I saw them.

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Well, I am sure Alicia that it does not seem true to you and I dont want to diminish
your experience, but we need to approach this intelligently and rationally if we are going to be
prepared for the Second Coming.
Evil is already here on this planet Derek. He has come.
OK, well, Alicia, again, deception is an important part of Satans war to conquer this
Kingdom for his own.
He has already won.
Alicia, Alicia, please let Derek finish, as I do want to get into the book and this is
leading right into some very important
Its too late. He is here, he has been born and he walks the earth and he has given birth
and he has a son and they both walk here on earth walk, they are walkers
Alicia excuse me
We may think we can destroy him, we may think we can hang him, lynch him, but it
will be of no use
Sorry Derek, I had to disconnect Alicia. I apologize for that, but before we run out of
time I would like to talk about your book.
Sure, King. Lets do that.
In addition to Einstein you say there is evidence that other great figures in history were
Nephilim as well.
And that one of those was none other than Shakespeare.

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Same story as Einstein, no education, no experience, so special skills, no aptitude that
would have pointed to this man becoming the greatest playwright in the world.
And what was his goal?
That will have to wait King. Cant give everything away in one night.
Fair enough Derek. It is time for all of us to end another fascinating episode of The
Plain Truth. So signing off, this is King and our special guest Derek Mills. You can obtain a
copy of his new book at a bookstore near you. Good night and keep watching the skies. The
truth is there for all to see.

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SKY

Three men it had required to carry into the barn and hoist up between those rafters years
ago, and that effort was nearly not enough, so when completed, hardened the decision in his
mind to leave it there once and forever. Tonight, however, alone he lowered the cutter from its
perch, pulled it off the rafter with ropes and counter ropes, lowered it backside first to the
ground, left it tilted on the tips of its runners. With a bar of lye he slicked the lengths of the iron
runners, then let it fall pointed toward the wide barn door. He reattached the hood of cloth and
leather trim, wiped the webs of rat shit and dust from the tufted burgundy velour seat. He bolted
in the long wooden shafts, dressed the reins and guides, hitched up his mare and coaxed her to
drag the sleigh against the squeaking of iron on wooden floors which spooked and unsettled her
until they were outside in the nearly silent snow.

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He lit a cigarette and picked up his whip. In heavy turtleneck sweater beneath a faded
leather bombardier jacket, his head topped with a felt Stetson, he climbed into the sleigh, sat
down, lifted the reins over the sinuous wooden snowguard, snapped them firmly against the
mares rump, clicking his tongue in the signal that widened her eyes and turned her ears as she
immediately and strongly stepped forward.
Both man and horse soon stopped so he could climb down and open the gate to the
driveway. He felt the mares nose as he returned but did not look into her eyes. They continued
on the driveway that would have led to the gravel road but he stopped the horse again to remove
a few loose fence boards and then directed the mare off the driveway and straight in the snowcovered fields towards the reddening sunset.
He drove the horse and cutter across the fallow fields, on through time. The brick
buildings of the neighboring nursing homes built in the last few years lost their earthen
substance, faded back into loping land, paved roads crumbled into paths of stone and dust.
Farms floated back to the horizon, the land became a sea again covering the earth, dancing with
the wind, swirling with the movements of massive hands feeling, smoothing the surface. Animals
again took to the fields, horses in great stretches of pasture, cows gathered in knots beneath large
elm trees; rabbits flitted through the fields like fleas; coyotes slinked through ravines and sidled
through the shadows; blackbirds cast their great nets across the sky, catching sighs and dreams
before snagging their captured thoughts within the branches of a tree.
A glade of birch trees filled a ravine owned by no one, a creek running through the
middle emptying into a large pond where rushes grew in summer, frogs multiplied, dragonflies
zapped the air, and birds strutted and hopped upon muddy shore. The evening percussion of
locusts, crickets and katydids, the stentorian frogs and tenoring fowl created a deafening,
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orgiastic clamor, sounds that multiplicitous, that dense.

During winter, the silence was as

striking as summers din; the pond was frozen over, kids would determine when it was finally
safe to scrape clear the snow with shovels and brooms, then skate in loops and circles while a
barrel burned tree limbs and branches, crackling and popping with yellow sparks and red embers
that burned deep black holes in the snow.
Night fell as horse and man rode on, street lights shriveled up and sunk back like dead
weeds into the ground, the sky lost its faded glow from the lights of suburban tracts and shopping
malls and now cast its natural inner, more distant illumination, trees retreated into darker
shadows, houses and barns flattened into silhouettes against a stony uneven sky, fireflies
emerged from the ground like nascent stars blinking their first signs of wakefulness, while bats
played, darting black holes in the pale lit sky. A fog rolled in off distant hills, covering all with
its impalpable frost, before rising, dissipating, before being absorbed into the cloud of terrestrial
fires, far away but bright as fresh paper on which new thoughts could be sketched.
He drove on further until he reached the top of a knoll and could see down in the vale a
knot of coyotes circled around a fallen hunt. From the distance, even in the poor light of the
shaded moon, he could see the yellow fur, he could see the limbs and even the age-whitened
snout of Ol Pal, the surrounding snow marked with the dark blood of a struggle now ended. But
this was not the time to stop. He walked on.
The cycle of things survived, not things themselves, what seems precious is only a matter
of time, for nothing is precious, nothing lasting, not man, not mind, not earth, only sky, only the
heavens remain when all else changes, for when even they change they remain.
He rode on until he reached a time when he had no sleigh, and was riding bareback atop
his mare. At some distance, he watched a young tow-headed boy race across the newly planted
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fields, a long bullsnake in his hands, stumbling over the clots of dirt he was carried forward in
his excitement, gripping the evidence of his valor. Then the boy slowed until finally he stopped;
holding the snake more carefully in his hands, he inspected the serpent and then letting it down
amidst the young cornstalks watched as it slid away.
Whats done is done, regret cannot change that, regret over all that could have been
different, regret of having no power over what we cant control, regret for not using power when
we had control, regret over not choosing, not knowing, not studying it all the more, for not
understanding, for not caring, for allowing time to pass and doing nothing at all. What defines a
man? With all the multitude and infinity of moments that it took to make him, can he now be
defined by one event, one act, one moment? A starting point on which all other points follow
stitch? Is that sufficient? Is that fair?
His mare then too gave way and he now was walking through the snow, he walked on
across the land as lights went out from homes, as the clouds rolled across the dimly lit horizon as
if marking the course of time themselves, until he came upon a house backed into the darkness
with a well lit porch. A beautiful young woman stood within the doorway of the porch, a
drenching rain assailing her if she tried to venture out any further. She was calling in words he
could not understand to a young man who stood beneath a bare limbed maple tree, the young
man soaked, unwilling to move even as she frantically waved her arms and raised her voice.
Finally the woman slammed the door closed and minutes later turned off the porch light, leaving
the wet young man alone with the rain falling like tears of the moon upon his head and
shoulders. Walker did not stop, walked on.

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The crickets, cicadas and katydids filled the air like so many castanets, winds blew like
distant horns and somewhere piece of metal clanked like the plucking of a string, sounds of a
land he knew too well, sounds slow and sad, sounds of parting, sounds of lost time.
How wild and carefree she had been once, always one to demand of life that it give what
she wanted, even if it wouldnt budge for her. Always creating of life a series of events,
happenings, making sure that each moment had some kind of memory attached, something that
would create an unforgettable account to hold in her heart. She carried on as if she somehow
knew the end was near, greedily relishing the present and spurning the omens of the future. Now,
too many scars upon her flesh for any of them to have any meaning. White blotches many of
them, small dots where the blood had been sucked away and never returned. How she had faded
over the years, shrunk and faded, in body and voice and in all things faded. Where had she
disappeared to? Where do those aspects of a person go? What of her had really vanished? What
of her was leaking away, spilling off, left behind with her each footstep, soaked away into the
shadows that stained the ground behind her? Was this his doing? How responsible was he for
this diminution of her physique, blanching of her spirit?
He came back to the knoll of his home, where an older, smaller house now stood, the
lights on, the shade of a woman walking past the covered windows, stopping and pulling aside a
curtain, revealing her white hair, her face wrinkled in concern, as if she knew he was there
standing atop the hill looking down upon her.
History wasted on generals and kings, what about the history of this town, this farm, this
land, this empty sky? Words, they dog him, follow him, change like strange beasts before his
eyes, begin softly then turn harsh and violent within strokes.

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He came upon her as he came upon an idea, from without hint or direction to the
formulation of a shape, a sense of color, a pattern, a relation that he had never imagined before;
and so she appeared bent and twisted, tattered and bloodied in the snow, the snow splattered with
the spray of violence that must have taken hits upon her, her face bruised and swollen, lips torn,
nose broken, jaw wrecked, her hands shaking from cold, from a cold fear, dirtied, bloodied,
scratched and wrangled; her belly bare and bulbous like something a man should not see, bruised
and swelling as if fists inside that belly were beating back at whatever beat it, the blood, the
water, the gush, the river of something flowing from between her legs, again what a man aint
suppose to see.
He bent over her and she screamed.
I aint gone to hurt you Jeri Lynn, he said.
And she screamed again and shook like a thing shouldnt shake, not with a baby in her
like that. Its you its you its you, she screamed.
As he found her he held her, he saw the destruction and devastation and a natural instinct
arose in him to let misery and pain be relieved, arose in him the mercy he applied to many a
critter torn and shredded, near dead, yet holding onto life like living things do when they got
only the smarts to stay alive, arose in him the need to make an end when there was too much
pain, when it was just more and more suffering, when there was no more life.
He held her with one arm around her back the rest of her body resting on his knee. What
men will do, like beasts, like dogs, nothing to be gained or learned.
He had one hand raised as if about to apply his palm to her throat.

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His soul was like a mollusk in if it were yanked from his body itd be but a shot of snot,
itd lie there shivering and cold, shapeless like an oyster gut.
Who was this girl? Here before him, was she here before him now or was she before him
before, in another time before, was this a girl who needed his help now or a girl he had failed to
help before, was this a woman whom he had known, known for so long, known in both her
beauty and when that too was lost like something is forever lost? Or was this someone new, was
this someone on whom he could no more impose his memories than his will? Was this a girl
who was all that he could have had, all that he could have known, had he known, had he known
then what to do, which he knew not in any form? But now, did he know now?
He raised one hand over swollen eyes, broken jaw, bloodied nape. Did he now have the
form in his mind to make this right, the shape on which all that was wrong could be right again,
to make the change to do what was necessary to bring this all back round to right? Was this
someone he could change? Was this someone he could take and dispense of with both a
dispensing of the present and a dispensing of the past? Could he be cleansed?
And then Flint arrived.
What did you do? the young man named Flint yelled, Others are coming, they are right
behind me.
He left the girl and the next course of things was that he was locked into combat with that
young man named Flint, clashing each against each other like nothing more than dogs would
clash, biting and scratching and tearing at every orifice they could find, sinking nails into lips,
grabbing testicles and ripping into flesh with teeth, hitting and scratching and biting is how they
fought, a fight that Walker had never bore experience in his life. This was more than fear, this

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was more than hate, this was a bloody destruction of something greater than each other was or
could have been.
What is this youth that fights so? What hated does it have for its elder? The faces
clenched and bitter, angry and frightened, slackened with sweat, youth and old age slagged by
blood and dirt, looked more one to another, images rendered, wrought from each another. He
fought the likeness and drew that in to give him more strength, to feed him with the anger to
fight without care, without concern for what damage he might do or what harm he might receive.
Yet, he could feel his muscles tiring, as if directly by his lessening will, and he could feel his
hatred waning as he struggled on against youth that had unending strength and unending hatred.
And so he did not flinch, did not blink when Flint raised the metal rod. He doesnt know how,
but somehow he catches the bar in his hand midair. He then hears Flint shouting and other men
approaching. He struggles to his feet. He asks her to come. He wipes the blood from her face
with his handkerchief. She shakes like a wet dog and turns away. From his front pocket, not torn
in all the rampage and tearing, he takes out a wad of bills, put them in her pocket. The
handkerchief falls and is left behind.
Fishing out his soul would be like plucking an earthworm from a pile of dust.
How he descended into some depths when he put on his grey welding clothes, his black
full face visor, his thick asbestos gloves, like a deep sea diver he was and he descended through
that darkness, the inky and blackgreen darkness until he found his spark, that scintillate of bright
heat, caught it upon his rod and choked it until it turned green and then would perform his
bidding, moving as he did this arc of light, drawing calligraphy in the blackgreen air, leaving the
fainted trails of smoke, an old language that said the same thing over and over again.

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On the ground, a daddy long legs strutting on its long whiskers like the amputated tip of a
little finger. Then the men pulled him from the cell, he did not go with them willingly or without
expression of fear in his face, he was no saint, he was no martyr, he screamed like the rest of men
scream, he yelled and cried, he screamed when they shoved his face into the dirt and tied
together his hands and he screamed and he kicked as they tried to tie his legs until someone
kicked him toe square in the kidney and then he laid still whimpering like a child.

He

whimpered still and then he cried as they pulled him up and dragged him to the back of a waiting
truck. He shouted and yelled until someone stuffed shavings soaked with horse piss into his
mouth. His eyes wet and enlarged glanced about and searched and prayed, yes those eyes
prayed, as the truck made its way slow enough down the gravel road, slow so as to allow the
people to pelt him with stones, whip at this legs with car chains, before the truck picked up its
speed, went out to the field behind his own barn, out to an oak tree where later a man all by
himself reposed in a form motionless, hands unbound, feet unbound, mouth open, eyes closed,
tears gone, drained, dead. Who was that man?
What is this world beyond our representation, beyond the world we have for it, the
scribbles we make, the lines we draw and corners we craft? Perhaps, he thought, he had all this
time been ignoring him, all this time through the branches of trees, through the blinks of animal
eyes, through the patterns in mud and soil, through the signs of cloud and sky, perhaps he has
been talking to God all along.
He was a stranger standing in a bedroom that reeked of life lost and squandered. In an
unkempt bed, a younger man wrestled with himself sat up and buried his head in hands, dead but
still alive, mouth open in silence, a scream only he could hear. Turning around he saw the three
women at the bus station, standing together in a circle, the older woman, the daughter and the
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granddaughter who was the prettiest of them all, smacking hands, clapping for time to quickly
change, for distance to be traveled, for the past to be past. He closed the door on the sadness and
despair he knew as well as anything that he had created, closed the door on the unbearable doom
of the purely inevitable, on what he knew he had done and could not undo.
As he walked the trees and fields joined into one river of darkness, the road and his hand
in front of him joined the darkness as well. The fireflies rose from their lower stations and
drifting higher their blinking ceased, their light steadied until they joined with stars cast further
across the sky, the sky began and ended on its great curvature so that he felt as if here were in the
center of a sphere and all around him points of light gathered and fluttered and merged into
greater seas of light then broke apart into identical bits of illumination, blinking and shining as
bright as a billion ideas scintillate, radiate, coruscate all distinct and brilliant yet within them the
sense of all that was solid, a vault that held the slow sounds of a trumpet, the low peal of
loneliness, the song that filled all that was air, all that was vacuum, all that lay ahead of him and
so there he went, on he went, alone.

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Epaulogue

Its curious how we act in moments of despair.

-

Lawrence Welk

Its a miracle I done lasted so long as I did. And aint no one gone care none ifn when I die.
Plbsst.
And long forgotten and thankful to be forgotten relatives came to town sleeping in the tractor
trailers they drove for a living or in breezeways or on stored bedding in peoples attics as none
of them had even a few dollars for a hotel despite having plenty of money for the beer and
whiskey and fast food they gorged themselves on through the days they spent chatting about the
old times, picking out photographs and music for the funeral
No sense telling people stuff about me they dont know already. What for? If they dont know
something about me now, it aint going to do them no good to learn it now. Why put some fool
things in their heads when they got enough fool things inside there already. Plbsst.

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WALKER
And the family gathered here was not a family recognizable by shared traits or tribal familiarity,
bred they were from multiple stock, variegated and varietal, fat and thin, thick boned and weak,
short and tall, blood and brunette, slope eyed and doe eyed, foreheads slanted and foreheads
sloped, a circus family huddled under this canopy of death as the waltzes played on.
How about you cant teach a cat to bark, huh? That was something my daddy always done told
me. But you know what, cats can learn to bark. Damn right. I got one. I got me a cat that
barks, just like a dog. Sure enough. If you dont believe me I will take ya to see it and when you
hears it then you tell me that cats cant learn to bark. Now of course this here cat believes it is a
dog, so maybe that has something to do with it. Who knows.
And she showed up smaller than I had ever known or remembered her and I dont believe she
even remembered me until she said, I sure am grateful Reverend, and she told me that she
thought they had done a real good job and that he looked just great yes sir that he looked like he
was ready to go dancing
We were brothers really just like them two were sisters, yes they were. Indeed more than once
people confused us for brothers, except I did not have the Walker chin and Walker did not have
my disappearing hairline. So I couldnt see it. Walker was a fine man back then, smart as a
whip, why there werent a thing he couldnt figure out just like there werent a thing he didnt
figure on. Youd never guess how we met, how we become friends. Ill tell you. I had been out
with some of my Army buddies and all I can say is that I had drunk too much as was the usual
back then. Anyway, there was this gal there and I said to my buddy I could be struck blind at
that very moment and be happy forever since I had seen her. Well someone come up behind me
and tied this rag around my eyes and they started twirling me about and sent me right out the

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door into the street. Seems I took this game pretty seriously you see and I went walking down
the street as blind as a blindman and came to our famous Snake Alley where of course I fell and
rolled all the way down to the gully at the bottom. I was laying there and some guy came up to
me and said whats wrong with you? I am blind, cant you see that or are you a blind asshole
like me, I said. With that, he lifted the rag off my face and that was the first time I seen Walkers
face. And well as they say we were friends ever since.
And he was funny too. Woo. Yea. Funny as all get out. Kept us a laughing all night he would.
Why I remember the time when he pinned Alicias skirt up in back and they was dancing all over
the dance floor and people were smiling and laughing and Walker kept telling her they were
cheering them on cuz of their dancing was so good when here her knickers were all out for
everyone to see. That was funny alright.
Walker, that was funny werent it?
Cmon Sonny, lets skidaddle
Yea, he called me Sonny, as if there were a side to me that only he could see, a side to me that he
liked better than the others. Heck, Sonny was a side of me that I liked better too. Sonny looked
as sharp as a razor boy.
And she asked me to come with her over to the body and as we walked across the viewing room
she was as light on my arm as a whisper and I touched her waist and felt nothing but a basket of
thin bones as if she were made of wire like a bird cage and we finally made it to the casket and
she said again my how good of a job they had done and didnt I think so and of course I said yes
and I was beginning to feel a few tears of my own as she patted his cheeks touched his eyes and

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then let her hand slip down to his mouth where I swore she tried vainly for a few long seconds to
part those lips and I had to say come on Alicia I need to talk with all of you some
Those were good days they were. Two or three times a week we would dress up and take a car
into town where theyd have big bands playing or wed go to a dance in some other town, always
the four of us, me and Maxine, Walker and Alicia, wed come into the dance and all them people
would know us you know, wed take the floor the four of us and it was like we had this routine
you know, wed swap partners and begin to twirl and kick and before you knew it we had the
whole floor to ourselves. The others would stand around and watch, clapping for us. It was quite
a scene it was. Yep, I remember even once Lawrence Welk came to B, that was a big night and
we wanted to put on a show for him you know. So we planned this routine hoping he would play
You and You which we knew he would, and I remember we were kind of keeping things quiet
you know not dancing or doing anything too fancy cuz we wanted to make a big splash when
You and You was played but it was getting late and you could tell that the band only had a few
more songs in them. So Walker he says to me that if we were going to do something we best plan
on doing it for the next song, so we went and got ourselves prepared and wouldnt you know it
but guess what that next song was? Damn right, it was You and You. So Walker was just beside
himself, like he was possessed by some demon and we all took to the floor in our roller skates
but Walker he had flung himself so hard into the crowd that he shot past everyone straight across
the ballroom floor and out the balcony doors and down the steps where we found him with his
feet up in the air laughing like a crazy man. It was a miracle he didnt break his neck. And you
know what, all this time, Lawrence Welk and that orchestra of his, you know they never missed a
beat? Not a one.

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WALKER
Sonny, tell em about your jumpers. Thats a good one. Who remembers that. You were as
wild as a grasshopper on skates.
That is what we were best known for was the roller skating act we had. We were down at the
skating rink every Friday night I bet, Walker was known for his dancing and I was the jumper.
Wed set up these barrels, first one, then two, then three and if we had had too much to drink we
might try four but I dont think we ever made that foursome but coming down on a barrel aint as
bad as it sounds something about the shape and rolling movement takes the concussion away, so
I didnt mind.
We were two couples that was one couple if you know what I mean. We were two brothers and
they were two sisters and we were each in love with each other as much as anyone could be.
And so when Maxine died some years later and then Walker he died well we still had each other
Alicia and me even if I hadnt been to see her for more than twenty years. There was no real
discussion you know. We both just knew this was the right thing even if our families didnt seem
to agree and so we wed. We both thought that we were just doing something that we had already
done many years ago in some way that we never talked about, you know.
Sonny, lighten up man. Youre putting me to sleep and hell I am already dead asleep. Share
some of them good stories we all got.
We had some good times we did. Oh boy. Once we going out to a dance and we had this old car
that got stuck in the drive which was all mud at the time. Well, that werent gone to stop us, no
sir, we hooked up a few of Waynes horses and took that car right up to Davenport. Some people
were looking at us like we were kinda strange they were. And Alicias brother Callaway was part
of the clan too for a while. He was a musician, a damn good one at that. He and a couple of
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other guys such as Buddy White, I remember him but I cant remember none of the others, they
would play together at some of the bars and taverns here. Callaway was on the guitar and Buddy
on the piano. Then they had some feller on the drums and we used to all get together and have a
great time. Dancing, singing, drinking of course. Walker sometimes got up and played with his
squeezebox and theyd play some polka and oh my we would dance. Woo wee. Yes sir. Good
times them were.
We got into some trouble too of course. Not like when we were real young and wed get caught
pissing in our fathers whiskey. None of that. But I remember once we were at my mothers
house and my mother was probably as ornery as they get. In fact, we stopped having family
reunions some say because my mom was so mean. She was nasty alright. She is the one who
put the double S-T into nasty, Walker would say. Anyway, she had one of those old cars, I cant
remember which kind, you know where the doors open like this right? You know, the rear doors
open in the opposite direction of the front doors. Never knew why they made them doors like
that. Well we take the car to go get some groceries for the family get together we were going to
have and Walker is driving and I open the door before he has stopped and bam! he hits the garage
and my door is knocked clear off its hinges. We figure Walker will weld the thing back on but
right now we just put the door back in place and went inside like nothing happened. Well my
Mom, who had killed my Dad with her orneriness, has somehow managed to get this other man
in her life, Herb, who in just a few short years goes from being a pretty nice guy to the most
miserable drunk you would ever want to see. And he was mean too. Anyway, after we get into
the kitchen he demands the keys to the car so that he can go to the liquor shop, Walker is about to
say something but just looks at me and we both kind of shrug. Herb takes the keys and off he
goes. He comes back a good while later and his face is all red from what we think is the whiskey
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WALKER
hes been drinking, but he is huffing and puffing and his suit is all messed up like he has been in
a fight or something. So I goes up to him and says, whats wrong Herb? Dont tell your mom,
Paul, he says, but somehow I managed to knock her rear door clear off, I kept putting it back on
but then would drive a few feet and bam it fell off again. I must of done that fifteen times, he
says. Oh boy, we all got a kick outa that.
Cmon Sonny, lets skidaddle-dee, skidaddle-doo, skidaddle-dum-dum-dum.
Another good one is when Walker comes home one day announcing that he had just bought some
jumping mules. For coon hunting you know, this way we wouldnt have to walk all through the
dark no more, these mules could jump over fences and anything. All you had to do was put thus
here blanket on the fence and that mule would jump right over it like it were nothing. So we gets
out into the woods, dont know where we are it so dark and we come to a fence and Walker says
Sonny just put the blanket over that fence and itll jump. Sure enough, I put that blanket over the
fence and my mule jumps right ver. But then we come to another fence and suddenly Walker is
having a time with his jumping mule. He put that blanket on the fence and it still wont go, and
Walker he is beating it something fierce, determined to get that mule to jump. Finally not
wanting to bear any more of Walkers blows, the mule jumps and it turns out that two feet past
the fence is a ravine and both mule and Walker down they went. Seems the mule was smarter
than Walker was.
But somewhere along the way, Walker stopped asking for Sonny. And then one day he never
asked for Sonny again. As if Sonny had never done existed.
Something happened to him somewheres, cant rightly tell you where or when. Just one day like
when you wake up and theres a storm when it was all clear the night before well some such
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storm overcome that man and never seemed to let him go. Cant say much more than that,
except he then become a wholly different man, a man who was cursed with some heavy
unhappiness and his demeanor never was the same again. I couldnt say I even recognized him
the day he died, I went to the funeral and all but I didnt know that man in that casket and I
thought to myself this has gotta be the worst thing that can happen to a man, I mean it is one
thing for no one to come to your funeral but what if all that do come dont know the man they
come to bear respects for? No one there were saying anything but I know I werent the only one
thinking that way.
I try to think of the best in a man always and there were lots to think good about Walker, if you
confined yourself to the good old days if you know what I mean. Why he built this here house
we live in now. Built it more than sixty years ago and I guess Alicia and me been in it more than
twenty now. Ain't a day I dont think of this as Walker's house though. I remember the day he
built it, didnt know him then but we all was watching him. This man who had come here to
town with his horse and got this widow to give him her land and now here he was all of a sudden
building a house on this land and building it all by himself as if he never had a need for a friend
or family to help him in anyway, which is not real natural when you think about it. So we came
to watch and eventually I couldnt help myself and I went to help him raise one of the roof beams
and he took my help and we raised that beam up and he climbed up like he was riding a pony and
he pinned that beam in place with a peg of wood instead of a nail and I remember seeing the
sweat on his face and he never did say a word to me about that, never thanked me just wiped his
brow and jumped down and we began on the second beam until we were done with that roof and
when we were done he didnt so much as look at me to thank me none and so eventually I just
walked on away and never saw him again until that night on Snake Alley.
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WALKER
But there aint much more about me, I dont suppose. Yea, I spent four of my years in the Navy
stationed in Jacksonville. Worked there as a radio operator. Never did see any action, well not
until I quit the Navy and after only one year got drafted into the Army. Sent me to South Korea
they did. Spent two years there and it is not two years that I care much to remember. I have
nothing against killing something or someone if there is a reason for it, but there has got to be a
good reason. You got to have a good reason. But there aint much I have to say about that. And
I dont want any of that military honors stuff, why hell no. I was no hero. Save that for the real
heroes. Not me.
One thing you aint Sonny is no hero. Tell them the stories of all you did, the things you only
told me. You werent no hero, Sonny, no hero would have done them things.
Yea well, after that I went back to working down at the train shop in East B making them pistons
for the steam engines and then later the diesel engines they have now. I started here when I left
school and then come back after Korea. Walker, he was a welder who was in demand all over B.
He had enough work to last him day and night for years. But he always worked alone, wouldn't
take on a helper or nothing. But he was the best at what he did, had a small engine on the back
of his truck and some cables so he could go to work anywhere.
Working in the train shop was good, did it for forty five years. That was before they had any of
these here safety rules and crapola. You didnt wear anything like a mask or anything like that,
didnt wear glasses on your eyes, nothing. Them burns and scars you would get why them were
your badges you know, you showed them off just like you showed off your tattoos. That was
part of your honor for working there. But it was a damn good job. The best men in the world
worked there. Always finding time to have some fun but the hardest working bunch of guys you

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ever seen. We could machine them engines and make them purr like no one else. Seems
everyone was coming by to take a look at us, wondering how we did what we did. We just did it
is all. I never finished eighth grade but I can tell you more about them engines than them college
guys who designed them. Its true. It was guys like me that ended up fixing the messes them
engineers created all the time, doing things from drawings when what you really need to do is
put the pieces together and corrects it that way. Get it to the point where it is right, where it is
perfect. Them big engines gotta be perfect you know. Cant allow even the smallest
imperfection, that means trouble, big trouble. Pblsst.
But back then they didnt know nothing about asbestos and stuff like that. We tore that stuff out
of old engines and it was lying around like it was piles of dust that we had to sweep out of the
way. Like I said, no one knew back them and so you cant blame no body I suppose, we could
have been more careful if we had wanted to too. I got a couple of spots on my lungs that they
say is caused of that. But if you are too careful about everything what you got left to live for,
huh? I mean you could be careful about the water you drink, all the things you eat and the air
you breathe but if you take them things away what have you got? If it aint one thing its
another, you know what I mean. Soon they will tell us that being alive is the worst thing you can
do if you dont want to die.
Well I married Bessie first when I got out of the Navy. But then she shacked up with some guy
while I was away, had a child too and so we got divorced right after I got back. The guy she had
been with left her but she never would have nothing to do with me. That child is my oldest son
Gary. Never talked to him for near forty years. One day he shows up on my porch and he says,
Dad, just like that, he says Dad, Mom done told me the truth. I am sorry Dad, he said, I never
knew. But I just want you to know that I want to see you some more. I had married Maxine by
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WALKER
then and we have three kids together. Randy, Tommy and Melissa. Then Maxine got the cancer
and she passed, I guess it was about twenty four years ago.
No one can ever be sure what really done happened to Walker, maybe it aint in us to know.
It aint for you or no man to know Sonny.
All I know is that everything changed around the time when his son was born and in fact there
was a change in both of them, or maybe they were just changing each other, who knows. He just
kind of closed up and when he was out with people which was not often he was not more fun in
his ways but downright mean he was, mean and hurtful, as in he would trip you up in the mud for
a laugh. I remember one time when one of my brothers came down to the track and asked to ride
one of the ponies, we had a trottingbred that we raced and my brother was itching to try it, and so
Walker said sure and took him down and got him set up on the cart and said to Gary, he said now
you take him this was around the course which is the wrong way. So Gary takes the pony out
and they are going along nice and slow and leisurely like and Gary is all smiles. After getting
about half way around the track then Walker shouts, okay turn around and come back. I says to
myself oh no. Ohhhh nooooo. Gary turns the horse and when he gets it pointing in the other
direction, the right way on the course, well that pony takes off as if he were in a race and Gary
can barely imagine what is happening and along the way he rolls off the back and hits the dirt
and it were a miracle that he werent hurt bad but turns out he just bruised his noggin. But
Walker, well he thought that was the funniest thing he had ever seen, he was laughing and
laughing. That was how he was, he thought it was real funny when you just about killed
someone.

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That there was the hardest part to reconcile with Walker, cuz those of us who knew him knew he
was just about the kindest man there was. He never killed a thing, he was always up for trying to
fix a cat that had lost a leg or a deer that had its eye out popped out being hit by a car. He had
that attitude towards life that it was sacred in some way. Dont know where that went in his later
years. But it crept out of him one night and never came back. Got replaced with a mean son of a
bitch that would hurt you every chance it got. Made you plum nervous to be around him,
wondering when and if he would pull something on you. We was all jumpy all the time over at
this house on holidays until the day we decided never to go again.
It werent just me, Sonny, she had changed as well. We were both infected, we were both part
of the disease. If I were sorry for anything I had done in my life Sonny it would have been for
not protecting her from it, from not doing something, anything to keep her from being ruined
as well. I should have done something, Sonny, but I didnt. I couldnt.
She changed too. It werent just him. She got all plump in the face and everything, and dark,
she got dark. Oh my, she was beautiful when she were young, the most beautiful gal in B. You
could ask anyone. She had this air about her too, like she was sophisticated. She and her mother
made all these dresses for her so she was always looking mighty fine. But that changed when
her inner constitution changed. As she got angrier, she got uglier until the inside was matched to
outside. She worked all day in the school and then worked all night in the battery factory. No
one ever saw her. Even when her mother was dying she was only home to cook up a meal real
quick and see that everything was okay. Then she was off again, back to work for another eight
hours, hell twelve. She kept her mother all locked up in the house it seemed, didnt want anyone
coming over to see her if she werent there. And then when her mother finally died she screamed
at all of us for not helping to take care of her mother none, as if we were to blame that her
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mother, at age ninety three, died from malnutrition old age I guess but some people think she was
starved to death. I know Alicia could never do such a thing, but there was something not right
about the whole situation if you know what I mean.
And so shortly after Walker died, well I had been alone for pretty near ten years, I just walked
over one day to Alicias house thinking I was going over to just say hello and see how she was.
When she opened that door I dont know, I cant really tell you what happened, but when she
opened that door I saw the old Alicia standing there, just as beautiful and wonderful as I had
known her. It was a miracle really, to see here there like that. Who knows maybe she saw me
that way too cuz we had barely said more than a few words to each other before we decided we
were goings to get married.
I thought you had finally healed us all, Sonny. But you didnt. You failed again. You failed
in the Navy, you failed in the Army, you failed with Maxine. But then when you had the
chance to make it all work for all of us, you failed again.
But Alicia now she werent that easy to live with. We had our share of good times alright. She
seemed to come out of her shell and I came out of mine. But I rarely saw that Alicia that I
remember from when we were young. She never appeared to me that way again. I saw her as
the angry woman that she often was, I saw her as the fearful woman that she was and I saw her
as the tired and ill woman that she was most of the time.
My kids had all gone off and wouldnt talk with me. She had her son and their grandkids which
became part of our life. Of course they were part of our life mostly cuz they needed to borrow
money for this problem or that one, but what else is kids for but to remind us we aint got a
pension or a retirement fund, what we got is a kiddies bank thats all for them. Thats right. I
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never told Alicias this as it would have hurt her too much, but I never cared for her family. All a
bunch of selfish little brats they were. Not a one of them talented like their father, but then
maybe Walker had done something to ruin that, who knows. But she Alicia never really cared
for anyone other than her kin. I could see that and I knew what she would do if I were to be the
one to die first. Everything would go to them kids. Even though them kids never card a bit for
her, even though they did nothing but torment her when they werent too busy ignoring her, even
though they were nothing more than a bunch of wild mutts railing around waiting for one of us to
croak, she had it all set up that everything we had was to go to them. Nothing I could do about
it. Well you kids dont even come to see you, she told me. Well at least my kids dont call me
names, I said. Cuz you dont got no proper family, she said, proper families are apt to call each
other names, she said. No use arguing with her, I tell you. Her mind was made up and that was
the way it was going to be.
Time to tell him Sonny. Tell him so he can know what a coward you really are.
One last thing you should know, Reverend.
Sure.
I am going to be put into the place I bought some years ago. Over at Grace Cemetery, yea,
where we buried Maxine. Me and Maxine bought a place there for the both of us, long ago.
Alicia and I, well we decided it would be best for me to stick with that plan, you know. That it
would be best if I was buried there next to Maxine. Saves us some money you know. Which
come to think of it, there is one favor I would like to ask you?
Sure what is that?

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You see this here gold tooth? Could you check to see that I got it when they close the lid?
Sure but why, do you think someone would really
You see I had it made from my mothers wedding ring. I figure I ought to be the one to take the
last bit of that womans orneriness down to where it cant bother no one. I figure if she was the
original cause of all these problems then I will take the last of her with me.
I see. Sure, I will do a last tooth check.
Your miracles are done all used up, Sonny. Sorry man.
So what else do you want to know, Preacher?
I think you gave me quite a bit to work with Paul.
Well, I hope you ain't going to use the stuff I said about Walker and Alicia, a lot of them things
would be perty harmful for others to hear.
I am here as your spiritual advisor as well as the minister over your funeral. I think I
know what to say and what to keep up in here, between us.
Well dont keep it in there too long. Likely to give you a case of heartburn real bad.
And a nephew he never knew bought him the only Brookes Brothers suit he ever had and it
looked like he had no arms in that suit only hands poking from the sleeves and they gave the
funeral director his wedding ring too late and it wouldnt fit over his finger swelled by the
formalin and during the private family viewing Alicia tried to open his mouth but the super glue
held tight and with her thumb she left a deep Walker cleft in his dead malleable chin

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WALKER
How many years had I waited? For what? For this? It was not a decision so much as a
required action sparked by instinct and controlled by destiny. It was not a moral action so much
as a reflected point from the past that came back and bitterly illuminated the present. As an act
of truth, or bearing some truth, it was as truth is, both real and ugly, beautiful only if you are
surprised, terrifying if it is what you believed all along. We want to be dazzled by the real thing.
We never are.
She was ten years older than me, but that had never stopped my love for her. Never. I
somehow had believed all of my life that I actually had harbored fantasies about this woman
that given the chance I would have loved her, but truth be told, in its ugly, disappointing reality,
that was not so. I never truly thought that way about her at all.
And so why now? She was less a living thing than the shell of a cicada you find along
the roadway, she was aged to a thinness that warned you not to touch or skin would crack, bones
would break. Her eyes had lost their way in the darkness of her sockets. Her fingers were bent,
ready to curl in on the palms and clutch dirt.
We didnt plan anything. At least I had not and I could not offer her the dignity of
planning anything in her state. I drove her back to her home, the home where I had sat with
Paul only days before and gathered my notes for his elegy. Curtains were drawn and the room
was dark. Smells had gathered here as if discarded like clothes from the living, left behind in
heaps that rose into your nose, the smells of a dank life, the moldy odors of old ages final days.
The walls and cabinets were cluttered with bric-a-brac, collections of elephants, spoons,
thimbles, and dolls. Photographs depicting generations hung in disheveled arrays on the walls,
the faces with their forced smiles held territory over these walls, stared down anyone who

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entered thinking of possession. Plastic vines and silken flowers filled vases, planters and
climbed over the fireplace mantel. A grandfather clock ticked and another electronic clock
whirred and buzzed, the sounds of time filled the room, the whir of seconds, the ticks of minutes
the short notes of a quarter hour, the full song of an hour. Yet, I knew that she walked through
this room hearing nothing.
Without a word she walked into her bedroom and sat upon the bed. She was as small as
the dolls that lined her dresser. Her hair was a faint lingering of smoke, her back was bowed, her
hands folded like dinner scraps on a mangled tissue. The long sun of summer is what was
responsible for what would happen, had darkness enveloped us, I would have left.
I put my hands on her shoulders and eased her blouse off those birdlike bones. Oh, she
said, probably without moving her lips. Her skin was white and had a faint glow of youth, long
lost but reflected here for a moment. I know, I was trying to imagine another time, another place,
another her, another me. And in the end it was not possible. I unbuttoned the blouse and laid it
aside. I then unhooked the bra with amazing dexterity and let the foam cups fall which released
two wrinkled flaps of mottled skin, a nipple barely staining the lowest reaches of each which sat
in her lap like the long ears of a dog.
I speak of her in these terms because this is how she looked, there was no denying that
she had reached a point where beauty was a misty memory at best. Age does its most horrible
damage in our eighties and nineties, few escape the way it sucks the form and fat from our
cheeks, how skin become paper thin and wrinkles up like an old Kleenex, muscles retreat into
folds of fat and our bones begin to curve in on themselves. I saw the putrid ugliness in front of

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me, I did not see her as beautiful, I did not have on some distorting glasses that only a
psychopath would wear, I was fully and perhaps even painfully aware of what I had before me.
And yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she
was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of
donkeys and whose emissions were like that of horses.
The point is that I loved this woman and had loved her for so long that I loved too her
demise, her ultimate decrepitude, it was a final step for her and for me. Those who believe in
time are those who fear death. Lose that fear of mortality and time becomes an element only
added to myths and stories as if as necessary as once upon a time.
I looked around the bedroom and imagined that it had been inhabited by her and her
husbands, that it held nearly seventy years of memories, memories that held little more
excitement than the bland faces in the photos that decked every wall and nightstand. I looked
into the long mirrors above the dresser and wondered at all the reflections that had taken form
there. I spotted the jewelry case which must had held Pauls things, it was a disheveled
collection of tarnished brass and copper, of stainless steel tie pins and tangled chains. In the
opened drawers were the folded piles of his undergarments, the balled collection of his socks,
many with holes in the heels and toes I imagined. How many handprints were on the surface of
the wood, how many oily fingerprints were on the bed posts, the door handles, how many sweaty
heads had fallen back into these pillows, how many hairs and flecks of skin, bits of dirt had been
tossed into these sheets, what history of human life could be reconstructed from these dirty
carpets.

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Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, Give your counsel. What shall we do? Ahithophel said to
Absalom, Go in to your fathers concubines, whom he has left to keep the house, and all Israel
will hear that you have made yourself a stench to your father, and the hands of all who are with
you will be strengthened.
It is not lost on me that I, as a man of the cloth who is free to wed and fornicate, never
chose to do so in his life, wedded not to Christ, wedded not to an ideal, but simply comfortable
with waiting for a moment that I knew would one day come. I knew I would outlast my desires,
my jealousies, my fears, and most importantly that I would outlast those who usurped me of what
I wanted most. First Walker who finally after thirty years turned his life into kindling and his
soul, if he had one, was released in the smoke and fire of his travesties, cast out and spread
among the dust of the heavens. Before I could plan a move, Paul, her other husband, took my
place and he offered a wholly different obstacle and I waited for another twenty three years until
now, this day.
Look at me, I said, kneeling between her legs. I half expected to see tears, but instead
there was a smile and her eyes looked at mine with a long wished for, a long dreamed of
kindness and warmth. I said her name as if asking her to confirm for me my place, my position,
this time, this thing that was happening. Her mouth was not wrinkled, not dry. It was moist and
full. I was confused and in my confusion I continued on when I could just as well have retreated.
But this was not my time to make such a decision. We kissed, a soft, light kiss, cool not hot, but
alive, as welcome as a drink of water from a leaf, from the palm of a hand.
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brothers wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to
thy brother. And Onan knew that the see should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in

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unto his brothers wife, that he spilled it on the ground. And the thing which he did displease the
LORD where fore he slew him also.
I reached to her hips and pulled at the waist of her pants. She had not the strength to shift
her weight to allow me to remove them and so she laid back and wriggled them down, past her
thighs, her shins, off her feet with toes as crooked as two sets of Allen wrenches.
Thy young breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. Come
blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out.
She had all the cavities and canyons of the aged, dark crevices formed by shifting flesh,
folds of years layered like a deflated gown. She had evolved into the ugliness that Picasso came
to love in women, earthly, shapeless, unsculptured. Upon her arms were hundreds of white scars,
her breasts had fallen to the sides of her chest which was freckled and liver spotted, her thighs
shapeless and white like limp laundry, while she was hairless everywhere but on her head where
her hair was as translucent as winter breath.
Thy stature is like a palm tree, and thy breasts are clusters of grapes. I will go up the palm tree,
and grasp the boughs. I am a wall, and thy breasts are as towers.
Dont characterize me as cold or cruel, dont confuse my words with those from a man
seeking to hurt, to humiliate either another person or myself, dont assume that my goal is some
masochistic attempt to experience the terrible while holding his nose, coming up for breath with
the violent shake of his head and gasp for breath as if he had submerged himself in a putrid lake
of human life. I was not after any such experience. You can only love someone who you can
make love to without disgust but without blinders. Only in that truth can you reach back to the

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early moments can you validate the years, the decades the endless time that is no time when it all
comes together as it did for us here, on her bed, amidst the stuffiness of her long life without me.
I was the one who was empty, whose life was nothing but the desiccation that comes
from having feared to do what was necessary, I was the one who was dead, whose body had
nothing to offer but sand, but dust, but putrid air. But I am not about to turn to self-deprecation
or, for gods sake, apology. There was no pity to be had for me or for her. I was as much a part
of her life as anyone who had slept in this room, nestled in this bed. I had as much right as any
to partake in this, the most human of animal acts.
We made love as we would have made love as teenagers. Not with wild passion or
movement, but as if we were making love for the first time. In awe of what was happening. Not
able to see beyond the act in and of itself, not yet prejudice by images of what it should be like.
Looking into each others eyes was all we needed. It was not anything to remember and in fact I
was worried that I was indeed rupturing her inner cavities as they might have grown thin and dry
and would tear like old newspaper. I imagined for a moment that I was poking a hole through
the asbestos tiles above us and finding all manner of cobwebs, mouse shit and balled up dust that
had gathered over the centuries. Love making was not pleasant, there was a terrible smell and
she lay there pretty much like the corpse she almost was and when I finished I could see that I
had indeed created a mess that seemed to concern her not in the least.
She walked into the parlor that morning, ushered in on the arm of her son, a man of about fifty
years now who had never held her arm in forty of those. She was wearing a black dress that she
had once ripped open at the seams and patched with black silk and lace so that it would fit her
swollen body but that was years ago and now she had torn out those frilly additions and reunited

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the original seams and it still hung loose and ill-fitting on her body smaller and frailer than
when she was a teen.
And so this was it, the end. This was the point to which all points of life swirled like
gnats in their tight and frenzied cloud, we were surrounded in the final smells and moisture that
was the last breath of life. We held upon time with a grip that was firm but tenuous, final all the
same because whatever we let go was forever ours now. I knew now delight of the flesh, the
permanency of our actions, I knew know why men bowed to other men, I knew now why women
coveted to be beneath the bulk of Luther, I knew what it meant to be a Man of God, I knew that
love could be thrown away time and time again but it was more permanent than our pathetic,
aging bodies and our increasingly insipid minds. I knew I was happy now that I had never leapt
from that building roof, that I had stayed above the rivers waters, that I had found the courage to
set a gown on fire, that those pills remained capped. For I could be a coward no more, and I
needed nothing to prove that, never again.
Thank you all for coming this morning to pay your final respects to Paul Gerald Schaefer. So
when we come to that point in life when all we have of someone we love are memories, of course
we would like to remember nothing but the good things. Well with most people that just isnt
possible now is it? That is why we have sayings such as we need to accept the good with the bad.
Such as No ones perfect. Or Despite his flaws he really was a good guy. Or one of my
favorites, if you only knew him the way I did. As you might imagine, I have heard them all. But
every once in a while someone comes into our lives who is as good as that, who harbored so
much love for others, whose first and last act was to help, to make another person feel better, to
bring a smile to another persons face. This was Paul. He left us with nothing but good
memories, he leaves us with times where we laughed with him and at him, he leaves us with
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remembrances of times that may have been hard financially, they may have been times when he
had little in the way of materials things, but they were the best times we had, the richest times of
our lives. He leaves us with the thought that maybe today we mourn not only his passing but
maybe we have lost a part of our selves that was good and fun. But I know Paul and I know he
would say that he didnt allow you to find that part of yourself, he would say that you discovered
that all on your own and now you need to keep that alive and if that is the only memory you have
of him then he is smiling long and hard in his final resting place, he is happy, he is content for all
that life gave and offered him.

There were giants on the Earth in those days and when the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men, and they bore children, the same became mighty men.

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